


Hey! As told by Gems

by OneCoolCat



Series: Hey! As told by Gems [1]
Category: As Told By Ginger, Hey Arnold!, Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: A bit of a squabble between humans and gems, AN unknown gem, Bad Writing, Blanca is OP in this fict, Blanca is White Diamond, Cannon Divergence, Coming of Age, F/M, Fantasy, Fiction Writing, Friendship, Gem/Human Hybrids (Steven Universe), High School, Nila is Blue Diamond, Rose and Pearl are best friends instead of lovers, Ruby is a boy in this fict, Seren is Pink Diamond, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Taffy and Sterling are their guardians, Temporary Amnesia, The diamonds are sisters, This is not reincarnation, Xanthe is Yellow Diamond, fict of a fict of a fict of a fict of a ......., super powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-05-02 06:03:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 44,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19193191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneCoolCat/pseuds/OneCoolCat
Summary: FIRST: I have to say that, I got this idea from reading Reverberations by ThatDastardlyCerberus. I posted a link. You should also check out Three Gems and Four babies.Also, check out Practically-pearlperfect (Madam_Violet) who also had some ideas after reading Reverberations. Little Stars and Reverberation shots.Long story short, this is just a fict on the four diamonds doing stuff. Following after the second to last war, which caused Steven to be separated from his gem, then after the last war that destroyed the Crystal Gems and somehow the diamonds reform into babies, Taffy and her husband, Sterling takes care of the diamonds. Fast forward 14 years later, we see how they're going about with their lives *shrugs* Nothing more. This is just something to read, if you have nothing else to read and you're waiting for your main ficts to come out. Welp, hope y'all like this even at least a teeny tiny bit *thumbs up*





	1. The Gem Glow Juvey; Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Reverberations (OLD)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17558606) by [ThatDastardCerberus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatDastardCerberus/pseuds/ThatDastardCerberus). 
  * Inspired by [Little Stars](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17747660) by [Practically-pearlfect (Madam_Violet)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madam_Violet/pseuds/Practically-pearlfect). 



> So I'm thinking about making this fict episodic, where I mix up a Steven Universe episode with an As Told By Ginger or a Hey Arnold Episode. 
> 
> Steven Universe-S1 Ep. 1- Gem Glow: Steven thinks his favorite ice cream sandwiches are the trick to summoning his magic shield, but he learns otherwise when facing off with an acid-spewing insect monster.  
> As Told By Ginger: S1 Ep1- Ginger the Juvey: Ginger is invited to Courtney's birthday party but doesn't know what to get her. Miranda tells her that stealing the "ENTER" sign from the bank would be the perfect gift. Ginger, Dodie, Macie, and Darren agree to do it, but Miranda calls her father, Officer Killgallen, and reports the theft. Meanwhile, Blake steals Carl's most prized possession: The Petrified Eyeball. 
> 
> Hey! As told by Gems: S1 Ep.1: The four sisters are starting High School. Seren tries to summon her shield and Nila ends up being invited to a sleepover.

Prologue

  
Pink and Steven were able to get separated, without any complications. When his gem was pulled out the first time, it resulted in “Pink OP Steven”, while the fleshy Steven slowly started dying; however this particular time was different. It was during the second war. A war between a gem more great and more powerful than White. She wanted to either eradicate or colonize every single planet and moon. And those that were already colonized, she would go to war with them, until they lost, falling under her leadership. She always won. And now, she was on home world, one of the biggest threats known to her. She had finally found the planet and was making her way to liberate it. The Crystal Gems warped to Homeworld after not hearing from the diamonds for a couple of weeks. Destruction. Chaos. Nearly everything that was built on the planet had been obliterated into shambles. 

They eventually found the diamonds locked up in a gem prison. Not the one that they put Pink in. This was a different one. A new one that they built. They managed to break them out, but the empress-like Gem stopped them before they could escape from Homeworld. The Crystal Gems, the diamonds and around 50 gems were all stopped by a force field that snapped into view right between them and the warp pads. The saved (or the _attempted_ to save gems) were all poofed first. Instantly. A bolt of electricity charged from her fingertips and towards the gems. All of their gemstones, falling down into the gravel. Then there was fighting between that Gem and the Crystal gems & the diamonds. The lopsided fight lasted for nearly 5 or so minutes until the bigger gem stopped to monologue, stating, mockingly that both the Crystal Gems and the diamonds together couldn't defeat her. Then she questioned where Pink Diamond was. A truthful rebuttal from Steven that she was gone was shouted out in anger and similar to White, the gem was determined to get Pink back in the spotlight. But she didn’t take his gem out physically like White did. Her eyes started glowing and a beam of grey light blasted towards Steven. He clenched his eyes tightly, gritting his teeth.

“Steven!” Pearl shouted.  
“No.. Not again..” Connie whispered to herself.  
The gem was plucked out and he fell to the floor. Knowing what happened last time, from what Connie had told them, they ran to his aid to quickly take him to his gem. But the gem didn’t shine and form into him and Steven didn’t look like he was dying. He didn’t look feeble or pale and he wasn’t hunched over and immobile. The Empress-like gem looked at them. A creepy close mouthed grin spread wide across her face.  
“What’s wrong! Why isn’t his gem reforming!” Pearl shouted.  
“Steven!” Garnet interrupted. She turned to him, asking calmly. “ How are you feeling?”  
They were all staring at Steven and he clenched his stomach through his shirt, looking at the pink diamond shaped gem in front of them. “I feel.. fine. I, I still feel like myself.. so far?” He wasn’t too sure if not having his gem this time would be any different than the first time it happened. They were all worried as to what could’ve happened next.  
“Hm” The gem hummed. Her index finger on her lower jaw. Her expression with a mocking look of bemusement. They looked back at her. “Now that shouldn’t had happened, right.. White?” She started fanning and swinging her hands left and right casually. “The ‘ole, pulling out his gem, thus unleashing his pure gem power. Looks like all the gem and the organic needed was a different kind of extraction and look at that! Good. As. New.” With a flick of her wrist, the gem flew out of Pearl's grip and she held it up. The gem, incredibly tiny in her pinched grip.  


“Mom!” , “Rose” “Pink!” ‘Steven, the Crystal gems and the diamonds said over each other.  
“You let her go, right now!” Amethyst summoned two spiked whips. Yellow and Blue jumped in from of her, towering over her. “If you dare do anything to her.” Blue said, icily. Yellow put her arms to her face in a boxing stance, electricity flowing through her fists. White in the back. Also ready to strike.  
“Whoa, whoa, hey. Ladies, there's no need for any of that.” She cooed. “Look, we all want something, right? You all want peace and your friends back, that puny organic over there.” pointing at Steven “ wants nutrients and liquids to replenish." She points at herself "and I simply. Want. Power!” She smiled, with a cheer in her voice at the end. “Now perhaps we can work something out.” She raised the gem up to her eyes, rubbing her chin, inspecting it like how a jewel expert would with an expensive jewel that someone was trying to sell to them. “Uhh, now let’s see. I can keep Pink here and-“ A large bolt of light struck her hand, causing her to lose grip on the gem. She hissed in pain, grabbing hold of her wrist and thumb. “Mmm!” She held back another pained holler. She exhaled. She chuckled. “Now that was quite shocking.” She quipped, shaking the pain from her hand. “She. Is coming. With us!”

“But you didn’t even bother hearing the end of the big deal. Do you not want to hear about me taking your personal organics to a new AND improved human zoo? And what bout the nice cells, uh, rooms for all you fine gems? The organics will have their liquids and eating material for the rest of their short life and you all, special gems will be under my care and government! Aha! And between you all and I, I was thinking about having a gem of the month for those on their finest behavior, oh and-”  
“Okay, this has been going on far too long. Let’s just give her a taste of her own medicine.” Pearl darted swiftly and jumped towards the gem. The Crystal gems and the diamonds followed suit. Steven followed behind, still worried of what may happen to him.  
“My own meni..scene.?” She raised her eyebrow.  
Everyone summoned their weapons. Steven hesitated. _Did he still have his powers? He still felt like himself, but he couldn't be so sure. What if trying to summon his power cause him to start dying? ..But he couldn't think about that now.. He could at least try. Maybe he still had a bit of his powers left.. Maybe this wouldn't cause him to revert back to the state of when White pulled out his gem._ He took a deep breath and slowly, he summoned spiked force field bubble.

And just as the Crystal Gems and the diamonds were about to make impact, “Okay, now that’s QUITE enough out of all of you!” as she motioned with her hand. They all froze. Some in mid air, in a potential striking pose. She sighed angrily, face palming her forehead with her other hand. “Y’all have the audacity to come to my now, home sweet homeworld, wrecking the place up even more, practically tearing it from the ground up AND y'all even tried to take my dear servants away. Then you all try to placate me by offering me a MANICURE of all things. I wear gloves! Nobody could’ve known from any one of you!” She sighed again, sounding defeated. She straightened up. “And then you all attack me again directly after! This is truly appalling. Indeed, truly appalling. She clicked her teeth. Tsk tsk tsk. “We could've had something good, you know that?” She looked at them innocently. “Well, enough of this crying and whining from me.” She picked the diamond shaped gem back up.. “I’ll deal with you RIGHT now.” She waved her other hand to the left and everyone flew back to the far side of the field. 

They got up slowly, groaning. “Garnet, I... I don’t know if there’s a way to defeat her. She’s nothing like who we’ve fought before.. Garnet I... I’m worried for the team.” Pearl winced.  
Garnet growled, her face twisted in a scowl behind her glasses. “We have no choice.. but to fall back on defeating her. We get Rose. And leave.”  
“And admit defeat.” Yellow scoffed. She stood tall, with a stoic expression.  
“I must decide what is best for the team. “  
“The Garnet wants us to follow her orders and run away. We ran away from White and look where that got us. And now she’s on our team, we still have a chance!” Blue stood next to Yellow.  
“ 'The Garnet', one of the Crystal Gems who broke you and Yellow out of your “rooms” is asking for a bit of trust here. I’m aware of who we now have on our team. We have three very powerful diamonds of course.” Garnet said, getting pleased looks from Yellow and Blue. “But we also have an unknown gem with power like no other gem. We cannot risk getting proofed or..” She cut herself off. “We just need to go back to Earth and form a plan.” Everyone agreed. They needed to somehow grab Pink Diamond's gem and quickly get to the warp pad. Easier said than done.

The purple gem was sitting down on her legs, just ever so daintily with here ankle length skirt. The gem laid tiny in the middle of her hand as she looked intently at it, like it was on display. “Ohhh. Work you!!” She hissed. She poked the gem around in her palm. “You can’t fool me, Pink! I know you’re in there～～～～.” She singsong, eyeing the gem closely with her right eye. Her lashes brushing up against the gem. “We have a long overdue talk” She growled the word out “between you and I.”  
Nothing from the gem.  
“Hm.” She said questioningly. She turned the gem over on the other side and looked at it closely with her other eye, then she brought it up to her nose and sniffed it. Nothing.  
She held it up for better lighting, cocking her head to the side, as she seen nothing out of the ordinary. Her face in a pout of confusion. Then she heard the sound of running in front of her “Hm? What’s this now? A group of pack mules? How fun!” She said, giddy. She stayed sitting down, with a calm smile to her face. Her eyes, half lidded.  
“It’s about time. I was getting pretty bored. She’s not the best of company, let me tell you.” She snickered. “Not the best conversationalist.” She pointed at the gem. 

The kept their pace, running towards her. Yellow and Blue stood on either side, the gems in the middle, with Garnet in front of the group and Steven on her shoulders. White directly behind everyone. Blue waved both hands and ice shrouded the bigger gem. Icicles grabbing on to her ankles and hands. “Well, this is new.” She said. Garnet high jumped and landed close by the gems knee. The bigger gem started to get up and Yellow used her index finger to summon an electrical force field above the gem and around the ice chains. She hit the force field getting shocked. White enclosed the bigger gem in a white bubble. An extra layer of enclosure with a very small opening at the bottom of it.  
Inside, Garnet and Steven were preparing for the quick rescue-and-escape plan. “Ready Steven?” Garnet asked. “Mm.” Steven did a slight nod. Garnet picked Steven up from off her shoulders and with a couple spins, she threw him towards the gem’s wrist. The rest of the Crystal gems were outside of the enclosure. They ran passed the bubble. White, Yellow and Blue followed behind and they stopped directly behind it, ready to fire any more ice, electricity and more when it was needed. 

Steven made his way to her palm towards her thumb. “And just WHAT do you think you’re doing you little twerp.” Steven jumped on a pressure point at the bottom of her thumb and jumped to the tip of her thumb. “Unhand my thumb.. UnTHUMB my thumb, nitwit.” She tried grabbing at her arm, but the ice chain stopped her. She started shaking her hand and Steven used the momentum to get thrown into the air. He came down, twisted her thumb back towards her fingers, the gem letting out a surprised and held in squeal of pain, dropping the diamond from her fingers. “Garnet! Mom!” Garnet dashed towards the gem, sliding on the grounded, catching it just in time. “Now that’s a strike out.” Steven floated down towards Garnet. 

The gem’s hand came down, just missing Steven. Garnet caught him and started making her out of the tiny opening. “That. Is. Enough! No more Miss. Nice Gem. She got up grunted at the electricity shocking through her body. She bared through it and she punched and kicked the ice chains off and started pushing on the white wall of a force field.  
On the outside, Garnet was running passed the diamonds to the warp pads where the rest of the Crystal Gems were. “Get ready.” She shouted from behind them. Steven still wrapped under her arm and his mom’s gem gingerly wrapped in the other gauntlet hand. The gem smashed threw White’s force field, causing White to wince and sound out in pain. The gems eyes were blazing hot pink as she ran full throttle tackling all three diamonds. 

“Garnet. We gotta go back and help them.” Steven bounced up and down in her arm. "I’m coming back. I’ll take Pearl and Amethyst with me. We’ll form Alexandrite. You and Connie need to go find Bismuth and the others and start breaking the warp pads.”  
“No, I can’t just leave you guys! I want to help out too!”  
“This IS helping us. To stop her from coming to Earth. She has yet to find it and I don’t want today to be the day. I NEVER want her to find it.” Garnet sounded a bit emotional at the end, though with her glasses blocking her eyes, it was hard to tell. Her mouth, a thin line.  
“But how are you going to get back.”  
“Don’t worry about us, Steven.” She jumped up and landed on the warp pad. We need to keep the Earth safe. Here.” She handed Steven his mom’s gem. “Pearl, Amethyst” she looked at each one. “Come on. Let’s form Alexandrite.” She started running towards the chaos. “Ohhh yeahhhh. Yaey yaaaaaaeeey!!” exclaimed Amethyst, running after Garnet. 

Pearl took one more look at Rose’s gem before making her way towards the fight.  
Three diamonds and a big, unknown gem. White using her eye beams, blue using her energy orbs and yellow using her electricity on the gem. The gem slowly trudging towards them, grunting through the pain. Steven just stood there, watching. “Steven, come on. They can handle it. We should warn the others “ Connie shook Steven’s shoulder. Garnet looked back. “Steven, go! Now!” She turned back continuing her run. He looked emotionally pained. “Co, come on Connie. We gotta start destroying the warp pads.” “What! But how are they-?” “I don’t know!” He snapped. She winced a little, her face shocked. “Sorry, Connie. I didn’t mean to yell at you I... You know how stress I get when they won’t let me help them out.” He looked back once more. Alexandrite already formed, her weapon in her hand. She started charging at the gem, the gem gave a swift jab to her jaw, sending the Alexandrite sliding a few feet across the gravel, next to the defeated diamonds. The gem turned her attention to the warp pad and started running towards it. Steven squeaked in fear. “Ah!! Oh, let’s go, let’s go, let's go!” Steven said frantically. Blue got up and threw ice chains around the gems upper torso, pulling her back, making her lose her footing and falling down on her but. Then there was a flash of light. 

“Bismuth, Lapis, Peri-“ Steven started, but stopped. Bismuth was lying lazily on the couch, watching something on HGTV. “You know, y'all humans CAN be pretty creative. But what y’all really need is a Bismuth to help make things a bit better.” She chuckled to herself. “Hehe, if these people want better Bismuth in their company, it’s best to hire a Bismuth.” She was silent. “Huh, that could be a pretty good slogan. Better write that down and patent it.” She chuckled.  
“Bismuth! Where are the others!”  
“Uh.. At some indie store getting some more materials to make more meapmorps. Said they wanna make a car or a boa-“  
“Uhhhhggg.” He groaned. "There’s no time to get them now. Bismuth, I’ll explain later, but we have to break the warp pads right now!”  
She sat up and shape-shifted her hand into a mallet, hitting it into her opened fist. “You had me at ‘break’. Let’s go, lil' buddy!” 

“Steven, is that.. Is that your gem? Your mom’s gem?” She scratched through her dreads. Steven was still very emotional, he didn’t know where to start. He didn’t answer her, trying to collect his thoughts about the situation. Then he pushed those thoughts back enough to focus on going to the galaxy warp pad. “Steven, what’s going on?” Then there was a flash of light.  
They were a quarter of the way from smashing all of the galaxy warp pads in that arena. “And she just... Took it out.. Just like that?”  
“Yeah, but, I feel fine. I don’t know what she did exactly, But I think we’re finally separated.”  
“But how do you feel _emotionally?_ How are you holding up?”  
“There’s.. a mixture of emotions really. I feel happy, scared, shocked, confused, overjoyed, But, more so at ease and happy.” There was a slight giddiness and hope in his voice. The small, small thought of possibly meeting his mom again. He looked at the gem laying not too far from them, laying on Connie's pillow-like backpack. The gem lay there peacefully. The light from the warp pads bouncing off the surface. It appeared to be sparkling. This sent a slight warmth over Steven. That same thought again: Too actually see her. To be able to give her the biggest of hugs ever. For her to wipe his face of his tears. He snapped out of it, remembering the task at hand. His eyes furrowed as he continued breaking one of the warp pads. 

“Steven, don’t worry. You’re mom is a quarts soldi-, a diamond!” She corrected. “You don't need to worry about her too much. She’ll be fine.”  
Then another thought entered his mind. _I wonder if Alexandrite is fine? Is she even there anymore? Is she still holding on? What about the diamonds? What kind of gem is that?.. What if she destroyed all of them? Poofed them or .. or worse.. And is on her way to the galaxy pad._  
“Steven!” Connie was directly in front of him, shaking his shoulder. “Huh? Wha?”  
She sighed in relief. “You nearly scared me. I didn’t know what you were-“  
“Connie, we need to go back, right now!”  
“But what about?” She looked around to see Bismuth smashing a bit too happily at the warp pad and she gestured at the rest of the remaining warp pads.  
“Connie, I need to make sure that they’re okay.” His face concerned.  
Connie thought for a bit and nodded. “Let’s go. I think Bismuth can handle these on her own. Right Bismuth?” Bismuth smiled widely and shape shifted back to her hand to give them an A-Okay sign. “I got this Bismuths covered.”  
They both chuckled slightly running to the warp pad. “Steven, maybe we should let Stevonnie help out with this one.” He nodded. “Right! Uh..” He thought. "If we can. You think we can still fuse?"  
"There's only one way to find out." They did a little twirl as a flash of light from the warp pad engulfed them. Stevonnie fell hard on the floor of the pad. “Ah!” She winced. “Maaaybe it wasn’t such a good idea to fuse during mid warp.” They nodded “Noted” They said. "Hey! But we were able to fuse!" they came to a realization.

A blur of a huge figure flew above them and Yellow crashed down, sliding a few feet in front of them. She got up growling. Her eyes wide and angered. Her form, scratched and splattered with gravel and mud. “She’s not even tiring out.” She said in frustration. She huffed, not noticing Stevonnie and nearly trampling over her. She jumped out of the way and rolled, getting up quickly onto her feet. “Okay, Stevonnie. Let’s show this gem we mean... Bismuth.” She joked and chortled. “Eh, Bismuth would’ve liked that.” She summoned her shield. “Okay, now to be serious.” She started running. trying to find Alexandrite. White and Blue were both using energy orbs. Yellow was on her way towards them.  
“Stevonnie, what are you doing here! Why aren’t you with Bismuth and the others!” She heard Pearl’s voice from behind her. She was just as muddy and scratched up.  
“Alexandrite!” Stevonnie said, worried.  
“Stevonnie, look out!”  
She turned to see White sliding sideways towards her. Stevonnie jumped up, bumping the top of White's shoulder, gently floating back down on her stomach. “White, are you okay?” She sat up, “Never better...” She groaned. She took them in the palm of her hand and set them down. “Your Pearl, I mean, Pearl is right. You really shouldn’t be here. You or your friend shouldn't be. My attacks can only keep her at bay for so long.” She got up. “We've said this many times before. She's not like other gems. We need a better plan to stop her. But.. this one may actually be too dangerous for you."  
“NO! I’m not leaving you guys!” She shouted.  
She gritted her teeth then sighed. “And you have to own up to your stubbornness, Pink.” She clenched and unclenched her jaw. “Steven” She corrected herself. She let out a deep sigh. “Stevonnie.” She said strained, through her teeth, as she corrected herself once more. She turned towards the fight. “Just. Be careful.” She started running towards the gem and a small part of Stevonnie's mind thought how cool it was that White was able to run so fast in those heels. An even tinier part of her mind said “Yaaaaas girl.”  
But she immediately turned her attention back to her surroundings. 

Pearl was helping Amethyst up to her feet, not to far from Blue. The gem’s mind focused on White as she ran towards her. Yellow tackled her from the side. Garnet was nowhere to be found. Stevonnie ran towards the fight, not really having a plan, not exactly sure on what she would do when she gets up close and personal to the fight. How does one fight something who’s ankle is literally the size of your whole body? How does one dodge eight pairs of feet? She didn’t know. But she wasn’t going to let the fear of not knowing stop her in her tracks. She was approaching them now. Specifically approaching the larger gem. She looked at the gem's skirt, then at the shield. "I don’t think I’m gonna need you while I’m up there.” Dust and gravel kicked up over her head. “Okay. Here.. I.. goooo!” She put as much energy into her legs as she could and jumped higher and higher. The shield dissolved and she grabbed a hold of the fabric of the gem’s skirt, right below the hip. She held on tight as the skirt twirled around with every attack the gem was firing out and with every dodge. 

Stevonnie started climbing up, making her way to the pocket of her skirt. Yellow was about to launch anther thunderbolt until Blue stopped her. “Wait! You’re going to hit Stevonnie!” she moved Yellows arm. “Blue, what? Stevonnie?" She looked at them "Steven, uh, Stevonnie, what are you-!” She growled. “Now how are we going to get to her. We cannot attack her while Stevonnie is there.” 

The gem dusted off her sleeves. “Well this is fun. Are you all having fun? Yes, because I’M certainly having fun.” She stuffed her hands in her pockets, one of her hands brushing passed Stevonnie. “Huh? Now how in the world did you get-? Well you all are just full of surprises, huh?” She looked up at them, then back at Stevonnie. She grabbed her and took a long good look at her. “What exactly are you?” She threw her up in the air and Stevonnie yelped in surprise. The gem caught her by one of her ankles. Stevonnie's shirt lifted down a bit showing her stomach. Showing.. Nothing. “Another organic, aye?” She nodded knowingly. A smug look on her face.“Eh, you don’t really have much use.. If any at all.” She threw her behind her back “Stevonnie!” The diamonds and another voice shouted. The gem let Blue run pass her. Looking at her with a smirk as the diamond ran passed. The gem stood there and glared at the two remaining diamonds and Opal. Her face dropped to confusion, then to annoyance. “Oh great. ANOTHER fusion. That wants. To be taught. A lesson.” Her eyes went light blue and a heap of ice shards filled the air. She launched them at Opal, majority of them missing her slightly as she gracefully jumped and twirled passed them. She slowly lost momentum as the shards kept coming and the last few hit her, sending her tumbling through the gravel. 

All Stevonnie could see was blue. Wait, did I get thrown all the way into the sky? No, that’s impossible.. Then I must've been thrown in the ocean!! No, I’m not drowning. I can still breathe.. So, where am I? There was a slight opening of light. The opening was getting bigger, showing more of the area. More of the grey area of land. She was in Blues hand. The gem having dove down sliding a good 120 yards on her STOMACH. A deep indented line stretching from where she dove down, all the way to where the blue gem was now.  
“Blue!” For whatever reason, she was just SO glad to see her. SO emotional from all of the turn of events that had happened and was still happening. “You caught me!” She genuinely laughed. “Nice one. “ She pulled a silly, dopey grinning face. “Ever thought about trying out for baseball.. or, I don’t know.” She shrugged, “Softball perhaps?”  
“What’s that?”  
A shadow overhead and then Blue was pinned down by White’s back. Half of her body on Blue and the other half on the ground. Her elbow pinning Blues face in the dirt.  
Stevonnie slide out of a lifeless blue hand. “Oh! Sorry Blue!” She got up achingly.  
“Ooooh, that’s gotta hurt. You okay, Blue?”  


She lifted her head up slowly, spitting some dirt and gravel out. “She mustn’t get away with this.” Her glare, cold as ice.  
“Blue! Let’s just fall back already! Bismuth should be done with destroying the warp pads by now! Let’s call it off now and go, like Garnet planned.”  
“Well that fusion isn’t here. She’s been poofed trying to save that defec- that Amethyst and ‘yeeted’ as y’all say, across the field and who know where she is now. So we’re going to go with plan b. MY way. This is payback.”  
“Blue, please!”  
“Stevonnie. Let us do this. We must find out her weakness, we MUST defeat her.” She got up and exchanged glances with White. “Come on. We can finish this.” She marched towards Yellow and the gem. The gem holding both of Yellows hands into her own and pushing her further and further towards the ground. The heels of Yellows boots digging deep into the gravel. Pearl jumped from the ground and onto Yellows shoulder and jumped towards the gems face, sparks zapping from her spear and into the gems eyes. The gem swatted at the sparks, allowing Yellow to break away.

“What are we gonna do Connie." She asked herself. "This isn’t going to end well, if they keep going like this. I can just feel it.” She sighed into her hand, listening to the battle. She lifted her head up. “No.” She summoned her shield. “We still have a chance, at least to save everyone and leave.” She started dashing towards the scene for one last try. Amethyst was flying off of the gems shoulder. She slammed into Yellow's forehead, her whips dissolving immediately after. Yellow diamond gave a disgruntled, annoyed growl. Amethyst jumped out of her face and onto the ground. “Okay. This is REALLY starting to bug me. What’s your deal!” She huffed. “How are you not even a little tired! Ahhhhh!!!!” She summoned two more whips.  
“Amethyst!” Stevonnie yelled.  
“Huh?” Her anger dissipated a bit. “Yo, Stevonnie! Whoa!” She jumped back, having to dodge Yellow's boot. She ran at an angle towards Stevonnie. She wheezed heavily. Her hands resting on her knees. The whips gripped tightly in her hands. “The gem is all bark AND bite, dude. I’m not sure how long I can keep this up for. And I KNOW Pearl is feeling it too! She just doesn’t want to admit it.” 

They looked up to see Pearl running towards the gem again. She summoned two spears and threw them at the gem’s torso with little to no effect and summoned two more spears, all while still running.  
Amethyst turned back. “See? She’s even mentally exhausted. Even I knew that that wasn’t going to work.”  
“THAT’S why I need everyone to fall back like Garnet said.”  
“Uhg, Garnet.” Amethyst looked down in shame. “She would still be here if it wasn’t for me being all, well.. me.”  
“Amethyst, stop. We had this talk before.” She placed a hand on Amethyst's shoulder. “Come on, Amethyst. Don’t do this to yourself. You know how special you are. Don't go down that hole again.” Amethyst looked at her through tired, watery eyes. She sighed, then laughed a pitiful laugh. “Why am I being so emotional?” She laughed in her pity, sniffling.  


“And Steven’s been even more emotional than usual today. I think we're all a bit emotional since what happened earlier.” Stevonnie wiped some tears from the corner of her eye.  
“Yeah, it has been a pretty overwhelming day, hasn’t it?” Amethyst started crying and Stevonnie felt more tears as they began to stream more down her face. “Wait, these aren’t our emotions. Or at least not just our emotions.” Amethyst realized.  
“Blue!” They exclaimed at the same time. They looked up seeing the fight a bit further away from them. Yellow was lying motionless on the ground and the gem was zapping Blue. The beams from her eyes glowing pink. Blue’s aura was barely surrounding her. Whether she was trying to use it as a power or if it was being brought on from her pain, was unknown. Both White and Pearl was nowhere to be found.  
“Oh no, Amethyst. Come on! We have to help her!” She said through sobs. Stevonnie ran, a war cry trailing with her. She was determined to get everyone back home safely. She was going to bring everyone home safely. She summoned a shield as big as her and with a twist and a grunt, she flung the shield with two hands. The shield gliding through the air like a heavy, cement frisbee. It flew rapidly, smacking into the gem’s cheek. She snapped her eyes shut in pain, stopping her pink aura. Blue huffed heavily, and fell to her side.  


The gem rubbed her jaw. “Ouch!” She looked to Amethyst and Stevonnie. “Now that wasn’t very nice.” She started moving her jaw around and rubbed it again. “And they say to always turn the other cheek. Well I sure won't."  
White was sprinting fast towards the gem. Her eyes glowing white and he teeth bared and clenched. “’I'll finish you once and for all!” The gem stood up tall, practically waiting for the attack.  
“White stop!” Stevonnie shouted. “Please! Let’s just go home! We can’t beat her.”  
Her glaring eyes were still shining bright white. “Pink, stay out of it.”  
Stevonnie winced. She’s just saying it out of anger. She’s just hurting. “White! Snap out of it! We can’t beat her. YOU can’t beat her! She’s just toying with us! She’s toying with YOU. Call it quits! Let’s just go back home!”  
“Pink...This IS my home!” He voice wavered slightly.  
“White, look around you! We’ve... we’ve been defeated. We need to know when to call it quits. Everyone has either been poofed or is beyond exhaustion.” White's eyes, still glowing, looked over the field, looking at the motionless bodies of Yellow and Blue. She turned slightly, looking at Stevonnie.  
“Don’t make the same mistake of forcing people to do things according to your standards! That's what happened to Blue and Yellow and you're going to end up doing the same to Amethyst and I.” White's face relaxed a liitle. She snapped out of it. “I... I've done it again without even realizing it. I’m, I’m sorry, I just.”  
A slow clap cut her off. The gem was slow clapping. A very pleased look on her face. “Well, it certainly TOOK you long enough, White. I honestly thought that you would never stop.” She cheerfully teased.  


White looked up at her, scowling. Then her face changed to a more revengeful look.  
“White, don’t listen to her. Let’s just go already!” Stevonnie ran towards Yellow, moving her nose. “Yellow! Yellow, come on, let’s go.” Amethyst was already at Blue’s side. She started pushing Blue’s forehead. Nothing from Blue either. Amethyst looked to Stevonnie. She shrugged her shoulders up, shaking her head. They were both out cold.  
“White! Let us do this again soon, yes? Why I-“  
“White, ignore her! We need your help. Only you can pick Yellow and Blue up.”  
White glared a few seconds longer at the gem before looking away. “Let’s go, Stevonnie.”  
She hoisted Yellow and Blue on either shoulders and started making her way to the warp pad.  
“Hey.”  
White ignored her. 

Stevonnie scanned the area, managing to find Pearl's gem lying a few feet from the pad. “Pearl.” She ran towards the gem, Amethyst following after her. “You did good your best, Pearl.” Stevonnie said. Amethyst pulled a red and blue gem from her front pocket. They all did.” She added.  
They got on the warp pad. “Heyyyyy~~~” The gem singsonged. She looked happy and pleased, which quickly gave way to an evil smile. Her eyes narrowing down on them on the warp pad. She looked up at White. “I can’t wait to play this exact same game on your home planet. I can only imagine how fun that would be!” She clapped, looking happy and pleasant again.  
Stevonnie looked up at White, the gem looked as if she was trying hard to mask her emotions behind a deadpan look. The purple, empress-like gem gave them a “Au Revoir", Giving them a four finger bye-bye wave. 

The light from the warp pad engulfed them.


	2. The Gem Glow Juvey; continuation of prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We continue with our story right after Stevonnie and the diamonds warp back to Earth.

She let out a sigh of relief. “We made it.” Stevonnie unfused and both Steven and Connie lay sprawled out in exhaustion. They were directly outside the beach house. It was a great idea to built a bigger warp pad for accommodating all three diamonds and to have the warp pad put so conveniently close to the house.  
“Wait, but what about Bismuth?” Connie sat up.  
“She can't still be at the Galaxy Warp, can she? Bismuth works to fast to still be there." Steven got up and helped Connie to her feet. Yellow and Blue were beginning to wake up. White put the down gently.  
"What happened?" Yellow looked around, noticing that they were back at the beach house.  
:"Did.. we win?" Blue said softly. She held onto White to steady herself. "White, you, Blue and Yellow should really get some rest. We'll be back.” White looked like she was about to say something, but stopped herself. She gave a small nod, stepping off the warp pad. "Come on, Connie. Let's go get Bismuth. We still have this warp pad and a few more to break-  


A bright white light flashed from inside the house.“Steven! Could that be?” Connie wondered.  
"Mom?!" Steven started running to the front of the house _Could it be? Hopefully Bismuth was most likely back at the house with his mom's gem. And with that white light...It could only mean-_  
He opened the door. “...Bismuth? Oh..it’s only you.” He said, slouching down a bit. The gem was stepping off of the warp pad  
“Well, good to see you too.” The gem scoffed. A half sided smirk on her face.  
“I’m sorry Bismuth. It’s just that, when I seen some light, I kinda thought that it was mom reforming and I guess I gotta bit disappointed that.. that wasn’t the case.”  
Bismuth smiled apologetically. “Steven, she has been... Well, I don’t really know how to put it.. Bubble? No. Fused? Mmm, in a way." She shape-shifted her hand into a pick ax, scratching her chin. "Eh, I don’t know what to call it exactly, but she’s been through, _whatever_ she was in, for years! Then she was pulled out from some kind of power from some unknown gem that we know NOTHING about. It may take her quite a bit of time to reform.” _If she reforms._ She thought.  
There was a knock at the door and Connie peered in cautiously. “Um.. excuse me..?” She said lightly, She looked around. “Oh!” Her voice was of normal level again. “I, uh, WE thought that, well.. We had wanted to give you a bit of time, but uh.” She opened the door far back to show one of each diamonds eye through the frame of the door. “White and the others couldn’t quite wait much longer.”  


Inaudible talk came from the diamonds as the all started talking over another.  
“Pink, it’s us, your siste-!”, “We’re so sorry, Pi-!”, “No amount of words can express how –“ “We’ve missed you so mu”  
And more inaudible chatter filled with remorse, hope, happiness, regret and love.  
“Hey! Hey! Hey! I can’t see!” said Amethyst jumping up and down behind White’s ear. “Rose!” She jumped up, squeezing through an opening between White and Blue’s hair. “It’s been so long! Oof!” She fell. “Please tell Pearl, when she reforms, to stop going into my room. I have a system! Also that donuts are PERFECTLY fine for breakfast. I mean, she doesn’t even EAT for crying out loud” She stopped in her rambling.. “Ooohh.. False alarm, huh Stevo?” She rubbed her neck in embarrassment.  
“What? She shouldn't STILL be in her gem, right Yellow, White?” Blue looked back at them.”  
“It shouldn't take a diamond _this_ long to reform. Though with her not reforming for so long.. I’m not sure what to expect at this point.” Said White.  
“I think that at this point, we all have a lot to talk about. Pink, how Steven can SOMEHOW live without his gem now and that unknown gem and her plans.” Yellow stood up.  
White looked at them as they agreed unanimously with Yellow. “But, we’re gonna have to wait for these pals to reform first.” Amethyst held the red and blue gems in one hand and the white gem in the other.  


～～～～～～～～～～～～  


Later that night Steven lay awake with Lion stretched out at his feet. Cat-Steven snuggled in his mane and Pumpkin by his stomach. Connie was home with her parents, Gregg was looking through some videos of him and Rose, Lapis, Peridot, Bismuth and Jasper were out to gather some tools _this time for another possible war and not for meepmorps,_ , the diamonds were in Rose’s Garden with Pink's gem, waiting for a possible reform and Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl were in the living room in deep discussion about what danger may come soon.  
_It had been a very stressful day, but this may still be the calm before the storm._ Steven thought to himself. They had wondered who the gem could’ve been, but came up with no answers. White was acting a bit funny earlier, while they were talking about the gem, especially when asked why the gem seemed to take to her and Pink more so than anyone else. Perhaps because she was a very important and powerful gem as well? But what about Pink? What did she possibly want with her? Maybe to simply reform and continue playing a role of a diamond. (Similar to what White wanted of Pink).  
There were just so many possibilities. Was she out mainly for White or for everyone else? What is her plan for all of these conquered planets? And why...? And why..? And why...? So many questions, with no answers.. And what of Steven? That was another discussion that had lasted for a couple of hours with the Crystal Gems as they found themselves nearly talking over each other:  


Did the unknown gem’s power work as some sort of a factory reset? And taking out the gem was like a hard reset? No, no, being born was like a hard reset, since everything didn’t get erased, so White taking out his gem was just like taking out a very important microchip? What, no, more like a battery, since that’s what helps power things. Steven needed the gem to live or to power his body. But he’s still here, so it wasn’t acting like a battery. Then a microchip, like she said! Or a computer brain? Without it, you can’t use the desktop. Look, I don’t know! Whatever she did, they are two separate people. But weren't they always two separate people? Well, yes of course! You can’t just be two people at the same time! So she was embedded, but whatever she did, Steven still retained both his human AND gem DNA. So she did some kind of extraction for them both? So Steven has the necessary part of his Gem side that he needs while the power did some sort of factory reset on Rose? Mmmm, well I guess that would explain why he still has all of his gem powers and can still fuse with Connie ..All of this is just speculation.. But what about Rose? Since a factory reset wipes everything away to it's original form, would that mean she would come back as Pink? ..Or did that reset wipe out _everything_ including her form? Like is it just a gem, a shell of a gem? N, No!! Uh, like I said before.. that's just speculation and THAT'S beyooond speculation. She'll reform! I don't know, maybe the ‘factory reset’ as we’re calling it DID wipe out all three forms, right along with the original. So… no Pink Steven, no Rose.. and ..Not even ..Pink. I.. I don’t know.. Look, all we can do is wait. Maybe she _will_ come back. It took Pearl a couple of days to reform. Maybe it’ll take time for her to reform as well? Well, we can all hope for that.  
But something else was in Stevens mind as he lay there, staring up at the ceiling. Why didn’t the gem just destroy them as they were walking back to the warp pad? She certainly could’ve, so why? Why didn’t she? What is she waiting for? She already knows that we’re inhabiting ‘a planet called Earth', so did she already know the location? So. Many. Questions,  


Steven tossed over to his other side, staring towards the front door. Tears started flowing for the 5th time that night. Blue was far away enough to not affect the gems, but Steven was still a victim of it from his empathy powers and his bond with the diamonds. He got up from his bed and gently brushed Lion's forehead. “Hey, Lion. I’m so sorry for waking you up from your nap, but I really need to go to the garden.” He whispered. Lion grunted, moving his ears, but keeping his eyes closed. Cat-Steven woke up, jumping off of his mane and mewing at Steven. He gave her a few head rubs before turning his attention back to Lion.  
“Come on, buddy. I know it’s been a very tiring day for all of us.” He started brushing the top of his nose. “Especially for you.” For about 3 hours, Lion had been teleporting the Crystal Gems throughout the world to destroy every warp pad. The last trip being on Homeworld which the gem oddly and conveniently wasn't present at the time. “Come on Lion, please? Just one more time. This is really important. I really need to check on the diamonds.” Lion opened his eyes and grunted again. He stretched and jumped down to the floor, waking up Pumpkin in the process. She opened one eye, to take a quick look at what was happening, then closed her eye, resuming her nap.  
The Gems were in the living room still having a deep discussion of the events that happened earlier.  


“Pearl, Amethyst, Garnet. I’ll back. I’m just checking in on the diamonds.”  
“Steven! At this time of n–“ Pearl stopped herself, looking at the tears streaming down Stevens face. “Just.. just be safe.” She said softly.  
He nodded. I should be back by morning.” He turned around, making his way towards Lion.  
“Steven!” Pearl blurted out. He turned back.  
“No words can describe how extremely happy we are that you're not... That you’re still with us.” Her voice wavered a bit. She cleared her throat, trying to keep her voice steady. “And you’ve been such a huge help today and.. and you’ve really seemed to had taken everything that happened today so well. We’re proud of you, Steven.. And we love you.”  
“We always have and we always will.” Garnet reassured.  
“Pffft... Yeah. I guess they’re right about that “ Amethyst rolled her eyes to look away.  
“I Love you all too. And I'm more proud of the three of you; standing up to that gem for so long, spending hours smashing so many warp pads, accommodating the diamonds to make them more comfortable here and.” He rubbed the back of his head, looking down at nothing in particular. “For, ya'know. Not freakin' out when uh, that happened. Looks like we’ve all grown and matured a lot.” They all smiled, not saying anything. Not particularly sure on what else to say.  
“We couldn’t had done it without you.” Garnet said.  
“You truly are a gift to us, Steven.” Pearl smiled fondly.  
“Yeah, you cool people’s, Steven.” Amethyst said casually. “You’re way more tolerable and less annoying than when you were younger."  
“Amethyst.” Pearl warned.  
“Heh, heh, love you too, Amethyst.”  
“Love you too, dude.” She gave him a thumbs up, still playing down.  
“Well, I should be going. “ He jumped into Lion’s back.  
“One more thing Steven,” He looked back at Pearl. “Please, take extra care of Blue. She'll need the most comfort. Between all 4 diamonds, she and Pink were by far the closest and, well.. She's probably getting hit with all these emotions the most. They were really close. "  


Lion roared and a portal formed in front of them. “I will, Pearl. Night guys.”  
“Goodnight, Steven” The said in unison.  
Bright colors in a blur. Going through white light and:  
Lion slid to a stop in front of some rose bushes. The air was cool and still. Fresh, new tears spilled down his face. Lion walked through a narrow entrance, walking inside the rose bushes enclosure. Steven heard sniffling the closer they got. “-at if they’re right?” He heard Blue say. “What if this whole reset thing they were talking about actually erased… _everything?_ Including our Pink? Yellow... As the gems were trying to tell us numerous times, Steven is his own person and not Pink. He’s just an... Offspring that has her gem. He’s not really her. But this garden and him having Pink's gem was the two true things that we really had of her. And if this is no more.” Soft muffled sobs came from the Diamond. Lion wound the corner . Yellow was holding Blue, one of her hands rubbing her back. Tears had formed at the corner of Yellow's eyes. Blue’s face was buried in her shoulder. White was nowhere to be found.  
“Yellow... Blue...?”  
They looked up, nearly startled at his sudden appearance. “Oh, Steven!” Blue wiped her eyes. “What are you doing here? Isn’t it late hours for you? Shouldn’t you be in your domicile having your daily sleep cycle?”  


He slid off of Lion and started making his way towards the diamonds. “It kinda is, but, well.” He touched his tear soaked face. Blue grimaced.  
“I just wanted to check up on how things were going here.”  
“Well things are going..To say the least..” Yellow trailed off, looking at Blue for backup..  
“Well, we would be lying if we said that things are going fine, but, there’s not much that we can do at this point, even as diamonds.”  
Steven sat down in front of them, petting Lion's mane.  
“We even placed the gem in Pink's fountain and we all sat in there for hours.” Blue stifled a sob.  
“Our hands are tied. We can only wait along with you and the Crystal Gems.” said Yellow.  
Lion looked at Blue, then at Steven. He nodded in agreement and Lion made his way to Blue, resting his two front paws on her knee and licking her hand in comfort. She gave him a weak smile, scratching his chin. Lion's tail swished back and forth in bliss.  
“Well, at least we can wait TOGETHER.” Steven emphasized. Lion jumped on Blue’s lap and made himself comfortable, finding a nice spot on her knee.  
“There is that.” Yellow gave out a sigh..  


Steven chuckled, “Maybe it won’t be too long before she reforms.” He gasped. “Ooooooo!!!! You all can play that water game that y'all used to play. And then we can play human games!! Wait, we can combine them and make something even more fun!!!!” He nearly jumped out of his sitting position.  
Blue laughed, “You know, Yellow, that doesn’t sound half bad.” She started scratching Lion’s side and he turned over so Blue could scratch his stomach.  
Yellow grunted. “That would give me another chance to settle the score with Pink.”  
“Yellow, don’t start.” Blue said, trying to hold in a laugh.  
“She cheated, Blue! And nobody can tell me otherwise! And what else, YOU just gave her that point! She didn’t deserve it! You fell for her trap! What kind of tune was that, anyway!... Had she not chose some obscure tune from who knows where by who knows who,. I would've gotten it! And knowing her, she probably just MADE it up anyway, so she wouldn't lose! And you fell for it." Her eyebrows furrowed. "Ooooooo, she’s definitely going to get it.” She balled up her fists and gave an envious smile.  
Blue guffawed at the sight. “Alright, alright.” She put her hands up in defeat. Lion looked up, but closed his eyes in bliss again once the hand came back down to give him more scratches and belly rubs. “We’ll _OFFICIALLY_ settle the game. Once and for all.” She smiled, a genuine smile and Yellow did the same.  
“White should be the ref next time. I at least know that _she’ll_ play fair.”  


“Where...” Steven cut in softly. They seemed to had forgotten that he was there, being so much into their conversation down memory lane.“Where is White anyway?”  
“I’m not quite sure.” Blue said, a small, worried frown on her face. She looked at Yellow, though her answer was for Steven.“After waiting for so long in the fountain, she seemed a bit, off. Even for White? She was telling us how none of this was working and that perhaps Pink was long gone.. She got up and started walking off, saying that she was going somewhere. We hadn’t seen her since. And that was when the sun was drifting below the horizon."  
“So that was definitely a few hours ago.” Said Steven sadly.  
“Yes, she has been out for quite some time. And she’s had her moments, but she definitely would’ve been back by now." Blue said.  
Steven stared off into the distance and had an idea. “Hey, guys? I think I may know where she is.” He got up. “Lion can stay with y’all.” Lion was now sleeping soundly on Blue’s knee. His tail swaying softly as she pet his mane gently.  
“Take caution, Steven.” Yellow warned. “White is changing slowly, but surely, but she can still be temperamental.”  
“I’ll, uh, keep that in mind.” Steven gave them a wave and started walking down towards the path where Lion had warped them to. He continued the path on down, trying to stay clear of the now dense bushel of rose bushes. A few minutes later through the prickling bushes he was in front of a clearing. The bushes had stopped in a curved line. In front of the clearing was a tall mound, planted with tulips and daisies. He gave himself a running start and jumped two times to clear the mound, gently drifting down, much further down as the other side of the mound had been plowed out deeper on the other side. He stood on soft, light brown dirt. In front of him was a small river that was flowing downstream. On the other side of the river was a hedge that stretched for miles .  


Steven remembered White telling him about her personal little hiding place that she liked to go to, to clear her mind. She told him during one of their deep talks that they had not too long ago. She told him about the spot in confidence. She trusted him. It was her personal little oasis in an oasis and nobody else knew about the place but Steven. She didn’t get into how she found the place or if she already knew a place like that had already existed. She seemed pretty distraught and pained when he asked how she knew about the place. She didn't tell him how, but she she did tell him other matters about her past and her feelings. She was slowly coming out of her shell and she, Steven and the diamonds were finally getting closer. Something that she wish she’d done with Pink and something that she’s trying to do with Yellow and Blue.  
White had her back to Steven, as she sat on her legs, in front of the river. Steven cautiously made his way to the diamond and sat down, dipping his feet in the river. Even with very little light, the water was sparkling, as if it had been filled with crystals. The coolness of the water in contrast to the warm wind blowing through the air. He looked up. White had her eyes closed, Her body in perfect posture. Shoulders squared, Back straight. And she had her arms straight out. She looked to be meditating. They sat there for some time. Steven not exactly knowing what to say. She put her arms down a couple minutes later.  


“Sometimes I wonder.” White began, her eyes still closed. Steven jumped a bit. _Had she known that he was there the whole time? Probably so._  
“If I had done just _one_ thing differently during my reign, would the outcome of today had been different?”  
There was a silence. Steven still didn’t know what to say exactly. Was she waiting for him to say something ..As a rebuttal or something to add on as an agreement?  
The sound of leaves rustling in the breeze.  
“I thought. No, I just _knew_ that I knew everything there was to know about _everything._ How to conquer planets, dealing with resource shortages when Pink left, every single gem's purpose and their status and their jobs, who _I_ was.... That Pink was still in hiding... and so much more. Then, just to have everything come crashing down right before my eyes. It turned out that there was very _little_ I knew and that I was acting on.. I don’t know, my own personal pride? It’s been so long, I guess I lost myself, Or maybe I was lost from the beginning and I’m slowly just starting to find myself for the first time.” She opened her eyes. They looked tired and worried.  
“I have made so many mistakes. Pink, being one of my many biggest mistakes and I can’t help but burden my mind everyday with those mistakes.”  
Steven felt his stomach knot up. He grimaced.  
White’s face was neutral.  
They stayed silent again for a few moments.

“I miss her, Steven.” She said plainly.  
Steven got up and leaned on her knee. He grabbed onto her pinky finger, squeezing it. “And I know she misses you too.”  
“Misses? We’re not even sure if she’s still here. And I’m not sure if she ever even missed me to begin with. And who could blame her with how I had treated her for so many years?”  
“She missed and loved you and I know that she still does. We’ll have a nice reunion. You, me, my mom and the rest of the diamonds, the crystal gems and a few close gems and family! And, and I know you may not want to hear this now .. or maybe even ever, but. The past.” He sighed, at how cliché he was going to sound. “The past, is the past. We can’t change what we did or said in our lives. We can’t change what we said to people or what we did to them, To family members, to friends, ..To animals, to the ecosystem. We can’t change any of our past actions, but we can certainly learn from them .And some past scars may even fade a bit as time go on."  
“These thoughts will never fade.” She said hopelessly.  
“You’ve learned from your mistakes. Just you being here and not. liberating and colonizing the planet just shows how much you’ve grown and overcame your past obstacles. It'll only get better from here. The first step was you admitting to your mistakes and now you officially need time to heal.”  
“Hm,” She nodded slightly. “This is going to take eons... But perhaps there may be scars that won’t fade away with time.”  
“Whatever the case may be. We’re here for you and we'll always be here for you, And we love you.”  
“I..” She hesitated a bit. Ever since she’d heard and learned the word ‘love’ a few months back, this was the first time that it was specifically directed to _her_ and not Steven saying it to the Crystal Gems or the gems saying it to Steven.  
She looked down at the river, a slight brush of pink hue on her face. “I love you all too. ..More than I actually show it."

 

White and Steven lay on the outskirts of the river. Her legs laying perpendicular to the river side, A small portion of the edge of her dress floating stop the water, moving rhythmically with the down flowing current. Steven was now laying on top of her hair.  
It was peaceful. The warm air flowing pass. The fainting rolling sound of the river and the sky a beautiful mixture yellow, orange pink, purple and blue.  
“This is nice.” said Steven  
“I want more tranquil nights like this.” Said White looking out at the river.  
“Me too.. I always enjoy our talks, “  
"And it would also be nice to share moments like these with my sisters. Whether it be in this personal spot or somewhere else.” She smiled softly. “And perhaps with the Crystal Gems too. From time to time of course.” The last bit said a tad playfully.  
_That would be nice._ She thought. _For everyone to come here every now and then, to just relax and to become a closer knit family._ She looked over to her side at a lonesome rose bush, bouncing with the breeze from the early morning wind. _That would really be nice._.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just have one more chapter to go until I get to the actual, slice of life/coming of age/ etc etc episodes with the diamonds.


	3. The Gem Glow Juvey; end of prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We read a newspaper on what had went on on Homeworld.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! So, I had to change something in the first chapter. Remember at the very beginning when it said that they were told three stories? Well, that was a major OOF from me as I remembered while skimming/ writing this chapter, that I wanted for the sisters to not know that they are diamonds. But, if they were told these stories then wouldn't that mean that they would know who they were? Yeaaah OOF, maaaaajor OOFAGE from me, lol.  
> So yeah, sorry about that. Anywho, instead of these being prologues/stories that were told to them, these are just TWO regular prologues to what had happened in the past. The first prologue (In chapter one and two) is just a general one and then we have this second one, from an old newspaper.  
> **The third prologue is the one that was actually told to them.**

KEEP BEACH CITY WEIRD NEWSNEWS!! May 12th 

“Protect them!” Yellow shouted amongst the scattered screams. Mixtures of white, yellow and blue light filled Taffy's vision. She squinted, wanting to shut her eyes, but couldn’t. They were in the middle of another war. She couldn’t close her eyes in such a dire time like that. The beam of their light grew brighter, but so did purple gem's. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine.“ Yellow tightened her face, exerting more power, trying to bare through the exhaustion and the pain that travelled through her body. They all looked like that.. One of them more pained then the others. _White's.._

“No!” Taffy finally managed to choke out. The air was getting more dense as toxic fumes seeped more into the air. She could feel herself waving in and out of consciousness. She looked at the three diamonds' pained faces. Anger, regret and sorrow behind their eyes. _There must be something else I can do._ Taffy thought. She and her husband had gotten separated awhile back, long before she entered the palace along with the Crystal gems. The diamonds had already been there. But now she was all alone. Her husband was nowhere to be found, the Crystal Gems were shattered and Steven, his dad and Connie had been caught in the crossfire as well and the diamonds' powers were slowly depleting. I Taffy got to her knees. Her bruised, scarred up knees and pushed herself up. That nearly knocked the wind out of her and she started wheezing a bit, trying to get as much oxygen as she could. 

“Taffy!” The sound of her nickname from a crackle of a radio not too far from her. She power walked a few feet away, trying to pace herself; her oxygen and energy becoming more and more precious to her. She fell hard on her knees, right by what used to be her backpack. Now it was just tethered material. All of the damaged tools and food and Pink’s precious gem coated with debris in her “bag” shown through the strips of burned, shredded fabric. Unfortunately, even years later, Pink still hadn’t reformed, yet everyone still had faith that she was going to one day. We took her everywhere we went, just in case she would reform again. Even if it meant being packed in and wedged inside a hiking backpack filled with various survival items. Taffy brushed some of the debris off, checking the gem for any damages. No major damages. No small scratches. Nothing. She put it gently in her satchel and picked up the half melted radio.“Sterling.” She said. Static. “Are you okay! Where are you!” She shouted, taking in the fumes. She hunched over, choking over his response. “Just.. got to the.. palace.” He huffed, out of breath. 

“Don’t come up! It’s too dangerous! I’m not sure how long the... diamonds can hold her off for. But I must find a way.. I have to.. We can still win. I just need to find a way.” “Well you’re not sounding too.. hot yourself there either. I’m coming up. I’m almost there" Then he said softly. "With all of the gems that were fighting both with and against us-” He hesitated. "Gone... It’s just you, me and the diamonds. And I think there’s a way to at least weaken that gem. The diamonds need as much help as they can get.” Taffy heard the sound of blue in distress through gritted teeth. The blue light of her beam disappearing immediately, Blue was kneeling down, wheezing from exhaustion. And with that, the larger gem’s light beamed with more force, closer towards White and Yellow. “Blue!” Yellow nearly lost focus, but kept her eyes on the larger gem. White stepped closer to Yellow, closing the gap and blocking a fatigued Blue from the bigger gem. “Yellow, we will not lose to her. It will NOT end like. THIS!” Her eyes grew brighter. A war cry from her ripping through the atmosphere. Yellow followed suit. Electricity crackled louder as it charged from her hands to the beam of light. 

_What can I possibly do now????_ She thought. I’m just a... Everything in my bag has been damaged. She looked over at Blue. _Perhaps just be a voice of encouragement? Well, it's worth a shot. Steven had done it numerous of times before._ "BLUE!” Cough. “Please, just try to hold on a big longer! We may actually have a way to weaken her!” Taffy exclaimed. She clipped the radio to her belt and crouched ran to the entrance of the stadium, but stopped halfway to catch the little breath she did have. “I..” Blue she shuddered. She looked up, glaring at the larger gem’s smug look. She tempted to get up, but barely got one knew a few inches off the ground before falling back down. She grunted, eyes shut tightly, shaking immensely. “Taffy, over here!” She looked up to see her husband, completely disheveled and bloody. His clothes scorched and ripped, revealing cuts on exposed skin. His face and bare arms gashed and bruised. “I have this substance.” He threw his duffle bag in front of him, rummaging through it. “It’s a mixture of a few solutions..” He started pulling out bottles in various colors of acids and other minerals. "Now if I can just put this together .” _One would think as to why he didn't put it together before coming up._ Taffy thought. Some movement caught her eye and she looked to her left to see Blue getting up to her feet slowly. With a strained war cry she began to emit her energy to the beam of Yellow and White's light. Taffy's husband took out what looked to be a mixture of a destabilizer and a satellite dish. He started pouring the bottles into the back of the gadget. “Sterling, don’t aim it at her gem." She looked at the gem's shoulder where her gem was, then back at him. " I don’t want what happened to the other gems to happen to her too. I... I don't want to shatter her." She said softly. "She may have been the worse of them yet, but, but who are we to do the same thing that she's doing? Perhaps she can be redeemed. Both humans and gems alike deserve a fighting chan-" 

“How can you be so sure?” He growled, putting the last bottle of solution into the back of the container. “This cruel, vile-” He sighed angrily, shaking his head frantically. “I’ll just aim for her hand to try and stop the energy” He twisted the cap tight with a loud click and he hoisted the gadget up, onto his shoulder. The gadget lit up, charging. Taffy heard a wicked laugh behind her. The air clearing up a bit. “Uh, uh, ah. There’ll be none of that.” She jeered them. _In hindsight.. We shouldn’t had shouted out our plan._ Taffy thought. White, Yellow and Blue were engulfed in what looked to be like purple ice. With a swift motion of the gem's hand, she grabbed Taffy and slammed her into her husband, knocking him off his feet. He slid to the other side of the stadium, losing grip of the gadget. She held Taffy close to her eyes. Those light purple pupil of hers. “You’ve been quite the troublemaker.. Now then, we'll just have to fix you up, don't we?” She laughed, flashing one of those 1960's housewife smiles.. “And I know JUST the thing to!” The gem took her index finger and placed it on Taffy’s head, pulling it back slowly. “Now, I’m no medical practitioner, nor am I a chiropractor. I’m not even a masseuse! But if I remember correctly, pulling a squishy human’s cranium down back a bit may.. do a bit of damage to the overall body...Either that or the head'll just boop! Pop off like those old candy dispensers. I don’t know. I’m just a gem after all.” She gave a half “Oh well” shrug with the other arm. 

Taffy grunted in pain. “What?!...How do you even know about pez dispensers in the first place?" “And how do you even know that _that_ substance." She points at the gadget laying on the floor. "will harm me?" Taffy didn't answer her. "See? We ALL have burning questions that apparently won't be answered. Now then, let’s continue the spa, shall we?” She continued pressing Taffy's head back. The diamonds still in the ice-like substance. Sterling was limping to the destabilizer. Then there was a pink light shining from within Taffy's satchel. “Oh? So you _have_ brought her! Ah, silly me. I should’ve checked. The truth was under my nose the whole time!” She looked at the diamonds. Completely immobilized. “I’ll give y’all a break.” She snapped her fingers. The substance shattered to the floor and the three diamonds dropped to the ground like ragdolls. She turned back to Taffy, slipping her gloves through the satchel and picking up the glowing gem. “Ah, any second now.” She had a wicked grin on her face. A few moments later and the diamond was still glowing and the gem's grin turned to confusion, to a plain face, to a downright face of boredom.. A few moments later, she looked disgusted. 

“What, are you STUCK or something!!” She snapped. “Whatever, time is precious and I have no such extra time to wait around." “Time to finish you all once and for all!” There was a sudden orb beam to her left arm and a yellow charge to her right, Both Taffy and the gem flew out of her hands. The purple gem stumbling back a bit. “Hey! What in the- Auhg!!” White tackled her to the floor. “Get Pink and Taffy!” She had the gem pinned down. Blue picked up Pink's still glowing gem and Yellow was holding a badly injured Taffy. “I know this is bad now, but that was the only possible way. We seem to only get in a few throws and openings when she’s distracted.” Yellow whispered to a half conscious Taffy. 

Blue was too far into a trans-like state, watching Pink’s gem as it was glowing brighter. “Pink? You’re, you’re coming back to us." The gem threw White over her head with her feet, sending White through the wall. Sheet rock started to fall. “Hehe, I guess these shoes of mine are for combat _AND_ for style.” She got up, looking at all three gems.. “But I’m definitely in quite a pickle now. Here we have four or _three_ formed diamonds in the room: One of them being a huge threat in particular,“ She glared at White. “And the other two, holding something that I want. Like that one, who seems to not know that having someone wait for you is quite rude." She points to Pink's still glowing gem in Blue's hand. "And then we have, not a diamond, but one measly human, who's probably too smart for her own good." She looked at Taffy. "But who to get first? White, Pink or the human? And then of course I can't forget about you two." She pointed both index fingers at Yellow and Blue. They were all in front of her, tensed and ready to strike out at the gem at any moment. 

“It’s times like these when you just have to go big or go Homeworld. “ Her whole body glowed bright. Her clothes and hair flapping rapidly with the force of her power. “ This gem is taking ALL of you down!” “We have no choice, follow my lead!” White hoisted herself up out of the wall. She held up her hand, her eyes glowing. Yellow and Blue followed suit. They knew what she was doing. “Whether this will work or actually worsen the situation, I do not know. But this is one of the last things we haven’t tried yet.” White said. White, Yellow and Blue's static of light started to form. They were going to try and corrupt her. . . _But then what were they going to do once she was a corrupted gem? A dangerous, wild corrupted gem? Try to poof her and have her bubbled? For how long would she be bubbled? What if she reflected the corruption light and_ they _were the victims of corruption?_ " Taffy thought. “Mm, there’s nothing like a bit of corruption light to end the day so nicely. Well since we’re sharing powers here, how about I show you one of my many powers that I had been holding back. “ 

The corruption light formed into a huge flood of static and light towards the gem. She stood there as a massive dark purple form formed out from her body. It slammed into the corruption light, producing heat and expanding the light in the arena. The diamonds were nearly knocked down from the impact. The gem’s power was pushing their light further and further towards them. The gem clenched her hands and bolts of electricity started curving around the purple form. One of the bolts jumped from the form's head and shocked White, causing her to wince in pain Their corruption light tinted with purple as electricity arced from the purple form and into their light. White's fingertips started turning purple, the color spreading to her hand and slowly spreading down to her arms. 

“White!" Blue shouted.“Yellow, this isn’t working-“ “I know!" Yellow said through clenched teeth. “Then what are we going to do!” White's eyebrows furrowed, trying to concentrate on her power. Trying to bare through the pain. “We... Still have one more thing that we can do.. Perhaps White may not be well enough for this... But Blue? What do you think?” Yellow looked at Blue. Eventually Blue got the idea and nodded. “You all will get NO more turns! This is the last time that any of you will use ANY more of your powers” The gem’s solid, purple form was getting brighter and hotter. They were squirting and found themselves crouching down with its force. All of the poofed gems that were on the ground were rising up from the forms gravitational pull. “This’ll all be over soon.” Said the gem, laughing. “And I’m oh so said that Pink won’t be able to reform to even see her precious colony again.” There was a loud crackle. Like the sound of wood breaking. Black smog engulfed the huge gem’s face and immediately started seeping into her skin. She turned her neck painfully to see Sterling standing weakly and holding the gadget loosely in his arms. “It’s too late," the gem coughed out. The purple started slowly leaving White's arms. It was receding and seeping into the purple form of energy. “Her own power is attacking itself!” shouted White. 

"This could be our final chance!" shouted Yellow. Pink’s gem slipped through a distracted Blue's hand. “Pink!” Alarmed Blue. There was a bright pink light and a base form appeared. “I'm sorry, Blue, but we can't worry about her right now! Let’s just hurry and give this gem all we’ve got!” Yellow shouted. The corruption light was gaining more light and momentum. “Just a little more!” Yellow commanded. The gem clasped her hands together, her eyes becoming black as the smog ventured into her eyes. “There’s still another power up my sleeve.” She said. The shattered gems still hung in the air, right along with Pink's base form of light. The base form into the form of Pink Diamond. The gem grunted, still weakened from the surprise attack. Blackness beamed through her eyes, mixing with the corruption light. Electricity, heat, aura, the corruption light and the black beams were all mixing together, filling the entire arena with thick smoke. The diamonds' forms were cracking and collapsing in on themselves. Pink's form changing shape and collapsing in on itself as well. And then... An explosion. 

Taffy awoken to Sterling calling her name. He was holding her on his lap. “Wha.. What? What’s going on? Where-“ They were inside their ship. The Stadium was still intact in front of them, He sighed in relief. “You’re finally responding. You’re finally awake!” He whispered. He starting hugging her head. She basked in the hug until a sudden realization came over her. “Wait, what happened? The diamonds! There was that explosion and... How, how did we survive?” “I can’t explain what happened>i> exactly. At least not right now.. But I managed to pick up a few samples of that stuff that was coming out of her eyes, along with many, many other.. substances and ...gems? gem-like people?” He rubbed his neck. Taffy still didn’t quite understand. _What all did she miss since the explosion? Did he really drag ALL of them out of the arena? How long was she out for?_ She wondered. 

“I’ll explain everything in detail, when we’re out of this place and safely home. But to make the long, nightmare induced story short, I woke up long before you did. There were so many different substances on the ground. Albeit from the stuff that I launched at the gem and the dark power that she shot out. There were also ..flakes.. I thought there were her gem shards, there were so many, but there weren’t. The material was.. different. I managed to scrap some of that stuff into a container as well. And then.. I found the four ...diamonds?" He didn't seem very sure. "Four?" Taffy asked. He nodded. He pointed to a small, steal crate. She got up slowly, still in pain and walked over and peered over the gate. There were four very small, infantile figures: white, yellow, blue and pink. “Wait, are they the dia...? What happened? How did they? And.. Pink!?” Taffy knelt down slowly in front of the four diamonds. Four infant-like diamonds.. They were so small. They looked like babies, but still had their gem features. _Gemlings...?_ She thought. Then she realized something while looking at them. Their pupils weren’t shaped like diamonds and also... I gasped. "Where are their gems?" Sterling sat near the controls. He pulled the seat up. "Yes, that's another thing that we have to figure out." He pressed a few buttons on the control panel. "So, are they, gems? Hybrids? Will they grow up? This day just keeps getting more and more... interesting." 

Taffy's story was written and published in the third person by Sterling Ishi. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We were told that we were found on Homeworld. After the final explosion, Taffy and Sterling managed to escape from the arena. And as they were approaching their ship, they found us. We had been the only gems left of the war. The first few days were a bit intense and emotional. Finding a proper care routine with us as infants, studying the many samples from Homeworld, working, and planning the funeral for the Crystal Gems, Steven, his dad and Connie. The funeral was held a few days after their return to Earth. Connie’s parents were hit hard the most. The two moving out of Beach City not too long after. And they hadn’t been a supporter of gems ever since and they hadn't been seen ever since. The very first night they got back, Blanca got sick. They feed us and everyone seemed fine except for her. A few minutes later, the food came right back up. They wondered if gemlings even needed food to begin with and that we three just so happened to be receptive to eating. They went a few hours since our initial feeding, monitoring us. A few hours led to a day, a day led to another day and another. The funeral had been on the fifth day that we hadn’t eaten. No signs of hunger. No signs of weakness. We didn’t sleep either. No changing diapers, no feeding, nothing except to watch us babble. There were two occurrences of Blanca levitating and one occurrence of her making sparks. A month after that, she made nearly everyone in the room cry when she did. And a month after that, she was making spiky forcefields around her.. Everything seemed to calm down after that. Xanthe and Nila didn't start showing their powers until much later. 

Our milestones were similar to those of a baby as well. Blanca being the first one to hit the milestone and me (Seren)...being the last one. Blanca got better at her first four powers just by the age of two and she was able to summoned her weapon at 4. After that, she was showing a new power every year and quickly mastering it. Xanthe's first power (electricity) emerged when she was 7 years old, and she was able to summon her weapon at 9. Nila found out that she could make other people cry after unleashing her power when she after they told her that we couldn’t get that cute little stray cat. That was a few months after Xanthe showed her power. Her water powers came in about a year after that and she was able to summon her weapon when she was 10 ½. And then there was me, who had yet to show a single power. But years and years passed and their powers grew stronger. 

We learned so much about human life and a bit about gem life. Eventually, we soon took after certain human qualities like eating and sleeping, except for Blanca who never ate, though she would sleep from time to time. 

Memories from the past crept into Blanca's, Xanthe's and Nila's dreams and also during certain moments when they were awake. Blanca's memories started coming back to her as early as 2, Sometimes they were so bad that she would wake up in a panic, screaming. Then she wouldn't sleep for days. There was one particular night when Taffy and Sterling was examining her brain waves. She was around 4 years old. She was having one of her night terrors. Then, she laid down on her side and lifted her arms out in front of her, Then she just stopped. Nobody knew what happened, but whenever she would start having those memory-nightmares, she would do that. Whether she was laying down or sitting up in a chair as she slept, she would hold out her hands and then nearly instantly, she would look to be at peace. Xanthe's and Nila's memories started manifesting around 7 or 8, though their memories weren't as bad as Blanca’s. Nevertheless, the nightmares were still quite bad. And then there was me who didn't have any resurfacing memories. 

There were times where Nila would lie awake emitting her aura during some really bad ones and I would go to comfort her. Yellow would go outside on the roof to unleash some electricity (though much to Sterling’s dismay). He had been telling the gem that using power like that during times of intense anger and hurt was dangerous and that she should try and find another way to cope before she hurt herself or anyone else. They tried yoga, taichi and other calming methods, but that didn't seem to work. (Though Blanca fell in love with the calming methods) Eventually, they settled in giving her a punching bag. Technically she was still using her powers in times of anger and hurt, but she was at least taking it out on a bag. It seemed to work. They seen a huge difference in how she acted. She was less angry and less temperamental. 

A few months later and with careful decision, they eventually enrolled her in kick boxing and Taekwondo (which definitely helped in calming her down even more and helping her in focus and self-discipline) and a couple of years later, they enrolled her in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu classes. When she enrolled in her first few classes Taffy and Sterling thought that the rest of us should try and find something that we liked as well. Nila found a swimming group and she later started playing water polo and tennis, Blanca had her tai chi, her bonsai clipping, her cooking and baking AND her yoga. And after dabbling into just about everything, I eventually realized that I loved gymnastics and soccer (Calling it fútball or foot-ball sometimes, just to annoy my sisters). And as far as a nice little activity for the whole family, we all took up volleyball and went on little vacations throughout the year. Everything went on from there with our own typical gem life. We hung out with each other, we got hurt (me more so than anyone else with my gymnastics and my so-called "excessive energy"), we argued over petty things, we went on vacation, we laughed, we had fun, etc, etc. Just, living our own lives. 

Fast forward a bit and now we're 14 (or at least 14 years since we've grown?) and we're going to our first day of High School and _school, in general,_ tomorrow! The newly elected mayor (who is most likely a gem~ist) had recently passed a law that EVERY single gem that was residing on earth had to take up at least 4 years of some kind of school setting, manufactured by humans. She claimed that even though it had been years and years of gems, hybrids and humans living among each other, she still feared that gems still had that “feral gem nature” deep inside of them, that must be ironed out and corrected through no less than a four year school and therapy sessions (for those who had been corrupted). That bill was one of the main bills that were passed as SOON as she took the chair. 

We had been home schooled since we were young.. (or little?) and now we were forced to go to school and HIGH school at that. I was both scared and excited at the announcement. I did want to try something new, but at the same time, I HAVE seen a lot of movies and sitcoms about High School... And it's usually unpleasant things about them. Nila was curious about how school worked. She had watched a lot of those high school teenage shows as well and the first thing she thought about was the pool and winning for the team. Her team players lifting her up with a hooray while she held a huge shiny medallion or a huge shiny trophy shaped like a diving board. Xanthe didn’t feel the need to go, at first, but gym, robotics and surprisingly woodshop won her over. Blanca didn’t want to go at all. Just the thought of having to be in a learning facility for 7 or so hours, five days a week to be around loud and obnoxious people and having to study for a class that’s teaching you something that you will never use once you’re out of that class, made her shudder. I even brought up that we were going to have English classes in our four years there. (She loves reading, especially Shakespearean and old, Chinese novels). And there was a slight hint of a smile when I told her about a nice library building being apart of the school as well. Oh! And then there was that one time when she gave me a genuine smile when I was giving her a play by play of her meeting her _King Charming_. They would both be walking with books piled high, not watching where they’re going and then, they would bump into each other, books falling down everywhere on the floor and only to grab the same book. Then, they would look up, their eyes locking onto the other's eyes, and they would start to stutter and stumble on their introductions. Buuuuuuuut then the smile left immediately after she thought about all of the other things that she would have to do in school. And to Blanca's dismay, she still has to go, whether she likes it or not. 

Nevertheless, I have a feeling that school won't be so bad for us. I mean, what's the worse that can happen? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now I'm finally done talking about the past, for right now. Next chapter will actually be set in the present.


	4. The Gem Glow Juvey; First day of school!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sisters are off on their first day of school! Let's see how this goes...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In real, I am extremely talkative, so I guess it kinda bled through with my work. I know I wrote too much.. But I can't help myself *cries*  
> Anyway, I hope that y'all enjoy these two new chapters.

“Noooooooo!!!!!! This can't be happening! This has to be a dream!” Seren ran to the window, peering out of it, catching the hot summer breeze.  
“Believe it.” Xanthe nodded.  
She turned back “But it’s not even that hot! So what if the air conditioners are down, they don’t have to close down the school. On the first day of school of all days!!”  
“What can you say? They have to take those hybrids and humans into consideration. Can’t have them dehydrating and whatnot “  
“But what are we going to do now?”  
“Wait until tomorrow of course. But right now, we can just relax.” Xanthe slouched further down in the love seat.  
Seren slung her meshed book bag off her shoulder and slumped back into the couch by the opened window. “But I was reaaaaaaaally looking forward to going to real school! Now we’ll have to wait ANOTHER day. Uuuuuugh” She groaned.  
“I don’t know, Seren. It sounded pretty bad on the news. I think the whole generator has gone up, with a few rusty pipes rupturing as welll. Could be a week before we can go back.”  


“But I can’t wait that long!! We’ve already been waiting for like, 3 months!"  
Xanthe shrugged. “Tough. You and the rest of us will just have to wait until they get the school back up and running.”  
“Xanthe, it's rude to try and prank people, let alone your own sister. Also, it wasn’t even a good prank to begin with." Blue stepped out of her room, adjusting her one strapped bag." It was pretty weak if you ask me.  
“What? You didn’t even let me finish! This was just the foundation! The prank had momentum to it.” Yellow whined, jumping up from the couch.  
"Momentum? How long did you think you could've went on for? Taffy or Sterling would've simply asked us about school today, blowing your cover."  
Xanthe looked away from Nila, folding her arms. "Yeah, well. She still fell for it. And I could've kept the prank going for awhile, just so you know.."  
Seen was shocked. “How could I had fallen for that.” She slide down the couch, her head resting on the seat..  
“This is the fourth prank this week. You should be able to see through Xanthe's antics by now.”  
Seren pouted.  
There was the sound of keys being picked up from the kitchen and Taffy walked into the living room. “Good Morning! Is everyone excited for their VERY first day of school!” Taffy said in her preschool teacher voice,  


“I guess”, “Quite”, “Extremely! I can barely contain my excitement!” Xanthe, Nila and Seren said over one another.  
Taffy continued talking at that high pitched level. “I’m SO glad to hear that you three!!” She cheered. Then she dropped the façade immediately and in a deadpanned voice “Because the four of you will have the luxury of going to school by the infamous school bus today.”  
“What!” They all said in unison. Xanthe saying it in a disgust, Nila saying it warily and Seren saying it a chipper tone.  
“The.. BUS!?”  
They looked upstairs.  
Blanca was at the top of the steps.“But that means we’ll be trapped in a vehicle filled with loud, rude, overly hormonal, paper throwing kids for.. 20 minutes!! Ohhhh.. this can’t be happening.” She dropped her bag and slid down to her knees, to a squat, burying her face in her palms. "Please tell me this is just one of Xanthe's lame pranks.” She whined in her hands..  
“Hey! I take offence to that. My pranks are really good.“  
“No, it’s not one of her pranks.” Taffy said in a soft, soothing voice. “And it’s not all bad. You can finally get a better look at the city while the bus takes you to school.”  
Blanca groaned, opening her fingers to peer through them. “If I wanted to get a good look at the city, I would’ve already done so and in a fashion most suitable for me.. Not in some hot, crowded-“  
“Well, I’m afraid you don’t have much of a choice, Blanca. Sterling heard some rattling noises in the engine and got a bit freaked out by it. You know how he gets. He doesn’t want me taking that chance in driving y’all four to school without knowing what the problem is,. And with that, I’m going to head straight to the dealership. The bus should be here in about fifteen minutes. Could be earlier, so y’all should start making your walk to the corner.. And Seren, get up please. You’re going to wrinkle up your clothes.”  


Seren pushed and lifted herself back up onto the couch. She started smoothing out her skirt.  
"I hope that your day goes great, Taffy!” Nila hugged Taffy.  
“Haha, yeah, well, waiting for your car to get fixed shouldn’t be half as exciting as getting to experience school.” She fixed Nila's collar on her Oxford shirt and smoothed out the girl’s cardigan, then finally making her way to Nila'’s hair, brushing it down with her hands “  
"Mm, _something_ exciting could happen. Like finding a corrupted gem that you have to save, or what if someone fuses out of nowhere without meaning to! Or you venture out to somewhere cool with a friend or friends that you’ve just met or” Seren said, getting up.  
She laughed. “Well, that would sure be something, huh? But I think that you would be able to handle those things better than me if they were to happen at school. Though I wouldn’t want anyone to get attacked by a corrupted gem. Besides, there shouldn’t _be_ anymore anyway.”  
Blanca walked down the rest of the stairs, clenching her see through back back to her chest., holding onto the straps tightly. She still looked nervous.  
“Everything will be fine, Blanca. You can even sit with me on the bus so no unruly kid will sit next to you.” Blue soothed. She opened the front door, the hot summer breeze blowing into the house through the holes of the screen door.  


“And you can sit with me, Xanthe!” Seren hugged her. Xanthe stood there, frozen.  
“Goodie...” Xanthe strained out. Seren let go of her and stood up straight. “Ladies, today’s the day we’ll be OFFICIAL high school students.! We have hit another milestone in our life. “ She was saying in a heroic tone.“And I'll try to see to it that all four of us will have a great day today.” She closed her eyes, smiling fondly. She started up again. “And as I’m helping US out, I can take on the WHOLE entire school! Bringing everyone together. Yes, I can see it now. I'll help every.single.student; gems, hybrids and humans alike as I bring them altogether through compassion and love and delicious, healthy food from the cafeteria we'll live in harmony and... and … and.." The inside of her eyelids were getting brighter. "and just simply be together, having a great time in all of our classes. And the day will end with everyone with bright, smiling faces as they look back on the wonders of today, a new chapter having been unfolded in front of them and a new one already on the horizon. Yes, I'll see to it that that happens. I'll try to make everyone happy. I'll try to save everyone from the horrors of school. And... And then I can...” She was trailing off as she heard whispers.  


“Seren.” Nila's voice was a loud whisper.  
Her eyes, were still closed. “Oh wait! I’m not done. You can tell because my eyes are still closed as I am still in the moment of my speech.”  
“Seren, forget about your speech. Look!” Xanthe said.  
“Huh? What’sthe big id- Whaaaa?” She opened her eyes to see a beautiful, bright pink shield. The edge of the shield was teal and on the face of the shield was a square, also outlined in teal and inside of the square was a rhombus outlined in teal.  
“Seren! You’ve... You’ve summoned your weapon. And without even manifesting one of your powers yet.” Taffy was in awe.  
“How did I?... Oooohohohohohohoh, this is so cool!”  
“Well, go on! Try summoning it! You almost have it.” Nila coached.  
Her face was in caution? Her tongue stuck out in concentration. She slowly brought her hand to the shield. The light formed into hard light she grabbed the shield before it hit the ground. “I did it! I actually did it! I actually summoned my shield!” She squealed.  
“Looks like you’ve hit your own personal milestone, Seren! I’m so proud of you!” said Nila  
Seren pinched and dragged her fingers along the edge of the shield, admiring how the material felt in her hand. "This is so surreal. I can't believe I actually did it." she whispered.  


Blanca was smiling genuinely. She had been afraid that Seren would never manifest her powers. “The shield really suits you. You look like a natural.” she said.  
“Yeah, even I have to admit, it did look like you'd done this kind of thing numerous times.” said Xanthe.  
“Aw guys.” She touched her face, blushing in embarrassment. “Now y’all are just being nice. It’s only a shield.” She laughed. Then there was a faint tug. A faint mental pull to the shield..  
“Don’t downplay yourself Seren, that looks like a pretty nice and sturdy shield.” said Taffy.  
A mental pull.. An emotional pull, a ..Pull..  
“Hey! I wonder what kind of cool stuff she could do with the shie-.” Xanthe started to ask.  
Seren's eyes drifted and found themselves staring directly at the shield. In some kind of trance, everything disappeared had disappeared from her sight, except for the shield. The rest of the world, black. The shield hanging in the dark..Audible chatter from her family turned to white noise, then silence. She stared intently at the shield for a few more moments. Suddenly, distant memories of her past with the shield came roaring back into her mind. Her training with the shield in some kind of arena, her blocking a certain gem from some rocks, her summoning the shield nearly 4 times its size, her and a gem spinning around in the shield in some pink room, laughing, summoning two shields, one in each hand, getting her shield taken away and flung by an unknown yellow figure.. Memory, after memory..The last memory being of her summoning the shield and flipping it over to seeing a different design of the shield. Instead of the square and the rhombus, this one had a thorny vine that swirled and stopped at a dark pink spot at the middle of the shield. Inside of the dark pink circle was a triangle.  


A chunk of some her memories with the shield came back simultaneously, with a sharp jolt to her head. “AHH!” She winced, as the shield vanished from her grip. A severe migraine that lasted for a few seconds and then, just a dull ache, slowly easing away. Silence turned to white noise and white noise turned into audible speech as she found herself with her sisters and Taffy again.  
“...-mbering her memories.” Nila was saying to them.  
Blanca looked up at Seren. “Seren, are you okay?”  
They were all looking at her now.  


She held her head, her face twisted in distraught and confusion. She let go of her head, slowly looking up. “Huh? Oh y, yeah. I’m okay, I guess... A good bit of memories of the shield came back."  
That got her some strange looks from her sisters.  
“Something wrong?” asked Nila  
“Yes?.. No? I mean, I don’t know, I'm just thinking about that last memory. That particular shield looked different from this shield. All of those other memories showed this shield. But that _last_ one... Why?”  
Blue laughed softly to cut a bit of the sad tension. “Oh, typical Seren. Always decorating and redecorating stuff.” Everyone gave their own slight chuckles, trying to brighten up the mood and most importantly brighten the mood of a confused and a doubtful Seren. They all agreed with the statement.  
“But decorate my shield? Y'all weapons still look the same, right?”  
“Well, yeah, er, ... Yes, it’s the same.. Yeah, I don’t think it has changed, er um..” They grumbled amongst themselves.  
“See, exactly.” She said. “I didn’t even know that you could redesign your weapon.”  
“Well, if gems can shape shift, I don’t see why they can’t shape shift and redesign their own weapons.” said Taffy.  
“Yeah, but.. What does that memory mean? Why did I change it?”  
“Seren, honey.” A hand was placed on her shoulder and she pulled back a little. She looked apologetic at that action towards none other than Taffy, who was just trying to comfort her. She was about to say sorry, when Taffy cut in.  
“I understand that you’re very worried about the history of what happened between your present shield and the shield in one of your memories, but you shouldn’t burden yourself with it. When the right time comes, more memories will manifest and connect with the memories you have now. But right now, don’t dampen your mood and worry yourself about it. You have a very beautiful shield and I think it’s best to focus on the aspect of the present.”  


Seren has only halfway out of her muck. Doubt still latching on to a small part of her brain. A hand hesitated before settling on Serena’s shoulder again. “You’ve summoned your shield for the first time and you've experienced your first set of ..your many, many memories. I know this is a lot to take in, but you know that we’re here for you.”  
“And we know a thing or two about dealing and handling dark pasts and memories.” Nila gave a small, weak smile.  
Blanca looked at Seren.“And some know a thing or two, more than others.”  
Xanthe placed an encouraging hand on Blanca's shoulder, giving her a weak, lopsided smile. “But like Taffy said, we have each other. And like _you_ said Seren, you want to make sure that all four of us have a great day today. And.. we can’t do that with you being miss mopey.” Xanthe teased.  
Seren looked up slightly, her head still down. Then, a small, shy smile formed on her face, making her look like a small, innocent little child. The small smile turned into a bigger, more genuine smile. "Yeah, I guess you're right. And with words of encouragement like that coming from YOU of all people?” She giggled.  
“Yeah, try not to get TOO used to it.” Xanthe waved her off. she let go of Blanca's shoulder. “Well! Would ya look at the time, we shouldn’t definitely start making our way to the bus stop.” She picked up her back pack by the door and made her way out the screen door..  
“Typical Xanthe.” Nila chuckled. “A small, little talk about feelings and she runs off. “  
“Though she _is_ right. You three need to start making your way to the stop.” Taffy looked at her touch screen plum watch. "Come on now, hugs, hugs!" Nila was quick to give one to Taffy and Seren nearly jumped into her arms, The two left out the door and Blanca stood there for a moment, Then she finally gave her a small hug. She started to make her way out of the door, but paused. The screen door gently closing shut. “Um..If I may request...without intruding of course" She quickly said the last part. "If you could possibly make Seren's favorite for dinner tonight? I mean, if it’s not much of a bother.”  
Taffy smiled and nodded. “I understand completely.”  


Blanca opened the screen door again. “I’m just thankful that it was nothing too dark” _(yet)_ she thought to say at the end. “I just can’t picture our bouncy, cheery Seren being hurt and tainted with her memories. But” She exhaled deeply through her nose. “the memories coming back are inevitable and I have to keep in mind that those memories may shape her into someone much more different. Someone more mature and less childlike and blissful. But maybe, just maybe, even with those memories, she’ll still find a way to genuinely carry that cheerful, happy, gleeful tone of hers."  
“I want that for all four of you. To have that optimism, that strength, and that happiness in y’all core. I hope for that every day.” She stepped closer towards Blanca. "I want that for Xanthe, I want that for Nila, I want that for Seren.” Taffy snuck in hug. The hug tighter than the first one “And I want the same for you.” She whispered.  
“I ..” Blanca began, her lip quivering a bit. “I also want that.” She leaned more into the hug, her head laying down on Taffy’s shoulder. Blanca wasn’t one for much affection, always being the one to break away first, but this time she didn’t. As much as Taffy wanted to bask in those rare occurrences that was this embrace, she knew she had to let go so Blanca could leave,  
She leaned back, now holding Blanca's shoulders. “And you will.” She touched her cheek. “You’ve been so strong for so long. It truly is a wonder how you cope with so much. “ She smiled at the gem.  
“I do have a few great people to keep me sane. “ Blanca said softly.  


Taffy gave a small nod, a small smile on her face She stepped back a bit. “Alright now, I don’t want you to miss your bus.”  
“Ah yes. You’re right.” Blanca walked down the porch steps and started walking up the street.. “Until then” She said, not breaking her pace.

 

She seen Seren jumping up and down, waving her hands above her head. “Come on, Blanca!!” I can see the bus down the street! You’re gonna miss-"  
Blanca dashed up the street, clearing the distance between them within thirty seconds. She was a few inches away from Seren as she stopped abruptly on her tiptoes.  
“Pffft.. Gems and their super speed.” Seren drawled.  
“Maybe you have it as well, Seren.” Nila shrugged. “You did just recently summoned your shield, Maybe this is the first, official day where the door of your true, hidden powers has been unlocked!”  
That made Seren optimistic. Just thinking about having at least one cool superpower. Like flying, or making the wind move. Oh! Oh! Oh! Or moving water like Nila!  


The bus pulled up and everyone got on: Seren, Nila,, Xanthe and a very hesitant Blanca. “Uh oh guys, looks like we have some newcomers!” said one guy.  
“Good day, my fellow bus mates!” Seren curtsied, flipping the edges of her shirt with a small dip.  
Countless jabber of 'good morning', 'sit next to me, cutie', 'hey, don't talk like that', 'Ohh, I like yooouu' and laughter was thrown around about the bus..  
"This is going to be a long ride” Blanca said. She sat down next to Nila who was already writing something in her notebook.  
“What are you doing?”  
“Writing down some stuff.”  
“Stuff?”  
“Yeah, you know. First impression stuff. I just recently picked up writing and it has certainly helped me to relax. And it’s fun to look back on it and read my thoughts on certain things. “Nila scribbled a few more things on paper, flipped the page, then handed it to Blanca. “Here, write something.”  
“Gah! Huh? Nila, there’s nothing much to say."  
“Nothing much is more than noooothing.” She sung.  
“I don’t even know what to say.” She scratched her earlobe, looking around the bus.  
“Mmhmm.” Nila hummed. “Just write about your experience on the bus so far."  
Blanca thought, then clicked the bottom of the pen. **The bus is just as I expected it to be; nevertheless, it’s surprisingly bearable.**  
“Ha! You missed!” someone said behind them. A balled up piece of paper flew overhead and bounced off of the back of the chairs in front of them, ricocheting and hitting Blanca’s forehead She growled in annoyance. Then she quickly added **when paper balls are not being thrown.** and handed the book back to a “not trying to laugh at what just happened” Nila.

…………………

 

The bus screeched to a stop.  
“We’re here!! We're here! We're here!! Xanthe, wake up!” Seren shook her.  
“Huh, whu?” She wiped a bit of drool from her the corner of her mouth and blinked a few times.  
"Come on, let’s go!" Seren was yanking Xanthe out of her chair.  
“Whoa, hey! Watch it, Seren!” She tripped over her own feet as Seren pulled her with her.  
They met Blanca and Nila in front of the bus.  
“We’re actually here!!” Seren shouted, hopping up and down. “Come on, let’s get this ball rolling!” She ran towards the steps of the school. Barely containing her excitement. Wondering what she'll see behind those school doors-  


“Outta my way!” A bulky gem pushed her as she ran towards someone to Seren's left. She landed hard on her back. “Ow”  
“Hey, watch it!” A voice quickly shouted behind her. Footsteps approached her and a slim, tall female with a round, purple gemstone on her right hand turned to Seren, offering her hand. “Sorry about that. She's pretty... _rude_ to say the least.” Seren grabbed her hand and pulled herself up. “Thanks.” Seren looked back quickly. Her sisters hadn’t seen the shove. Nila was writing something down in her book, then bringing the book to Xanthe's face. The gem raising her hands, and shaking her head. Blanca was already gone.  
“No problem.” The hybrid shifted her bag to her other shoulder. “So, um.. How’s your back? Looks like you fell pretty hard.”

“Hey, I may not look it, but I’m a pretty tough cookie." She breathed in, puffing out her chest. "Why, sometimes I feel as strong and robust as a diamond."  
The hybrid covered her mouth as she laughed. “Oh, well, that’s good to hear.” She laughed again. Seren heard some cheering and clapping from her left. The same area where that gem had went to.“So, uh, is this your fir-  
She turned her attention to the area. There was a flash of light in front of them and the cheering grew louder. What in the world is so exciting to them? Seren wondered.  
“Hello?... .あの~ (Ano-Umm).” The girl tilted a bit to face Seren.  
“Huh? Oh! Uh, sorry. Kinda spaced out right there. Umm.. no pun intended.”  
The girl didn’t quite get the “Out of space, you know, ‘cause were gems” joke.  
“Er, sorry. Um, what did you say?” Seren asked.  
"I asked if this was your first time attending this school?”  
“Yeah, it is. Actually, this is my first time attending _actual_ school in general. I was homeschooled, up until that law passed.”  
“Oh, I see. Well, if you need any assistance in navigating around the school, I’ll be glad to help you.”  
“Thanks!” Seren piped up.  


More cheering and clapping.  
“What is going on over there?” Seren questioned.  
“Oh that? Yeah, uh, the popular girl summoned her weapon over the summer and now she’s just a' flauntin' it around.”  
“The popular girl? Wait, so that’s like, actually real? I’ve only seen it on sitcoms! I didn’t think that that was actually true! So she has like, her own puppet-like cliques that she calls friends? And does this school have like, jocks and nerds and otakus and urban legends?"  
“Uh.. I understood majority of that. But, this school has many things such as that, yes. Also, maybe it isn’t the best to watch those programs.”  
“Mm, maybe so." Seren shrugged. Then she turned back to the commotion. "I wonder what her weapon is?”  
“A fan."  
"Like, the ones that you plug in and blows out air?"  
She laughed. "What? No. It's one of those Japanese folding fans. She was all gloating and posting pictures and videos of it. Yesterday she posted that she was going to show it to people on the first day of school."  
“Well, I don’t condone gloating..but I definitely understand how she feels. I actually summoned my weapon for the FIRST time today! And boy was it exhilarating!”  
“Ex-zilera-ting?”  
“Yeah! I mean, I thought that I was going to have some kind of cool looking sword and or endless amo of like, daggers or those throwing stars that I see in those kung full movies, but it was a shield. But don't get me wrong, I really loved the shield. I loved every minute of the whole experience!" Then that one memory of the shield bearing a different look came to her mind and she felt that doubt slowly starting to creep up again. “Well, just about every minute of it. Uh, anyway.” She shook the thoughts out of her head. “What about you? What’s your weapon?”  


“Oh, me?” She pointed at her nose and stumbled on her words nervously. “Uh, well actually I, uh, ええと(eeto- Uhhh, well..)  
“Hey, look out!” They heard someone shout. There was a sound of being hit and a loud yell.  
“What is your problem!” Xanthe shouted. Seren and the girl turned around to see Nila on the ground and holding her arm and Xanthe standing between her and a short, slim girl with blonde hair. "What is YOUR problem raising your voice at Courtney!" Another girl shouted. She was taller than Courtney and she wore her hair in braids that went up into a ponytail. Her hands clenched into fists.  
Courtney looked torn between apologetic and trying to keep her cool. She placed her hand on the girl's chest, stopping her from getting closer to Xanthe. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it. It slipped.” She said apologetically. “You know how that is. Sometimes weapons just have a mind of their own!” She laughed. She was approaching Nila to help her up. “Stay away from her!” Xanthe stopped her “I can help her up myself.”  


"But can you help yourself up when I'm done with you?" said the girl. Her hands still clenched.  
"What!"  
"Oh, Miranda, quit it." said Courtney.  
"Yeah, Xanthe. Just calm down. You’re starting to cause a scene.” Nila said shyly. “Let’s just forget about this and go. We’re about to be late to our homeroom anyway." She got up with Xanthe's help. "And she already apologized, Let’s just go.” Nila said, dusting the back of her skirt off.  
Xanthe scowled, but didn’t say anything. She brushed past Courtney, bumping her. She didn't say anything to that. The crowd moved away for Xanthe to march pass them. Miranda was about to do something about it, but Courtney stopped her by her arm. "Leave her, Miranda. She's not worth it." She let go of her arm. "Just, go on ahead. I'll meet you in homeroom."  
Miranda hesitated, then she took a final, chilling look at Nila and left Courtney's side.  
The crowd looked back at the blond girl. "Have no fear, everyone. It was just a bit of banter. Ah, there's nothing like a bit of a banter to rile everything up for a morning."  
The crowd started to quiet down and students started to leave the group, heading into the school.  


Courtney turned to Nila, looking up at her, scowling and successfully intimidating Nila. “I, uh.. sorry I messed up your moment.”  
“Say that to my!.. Wait, what did you say?” Her demeanor seemed to falter just slightly.  
“Your moment. If it wasn’t for me being in the way, that cool looking fan thingy that you had going on could’ve like, I don’t know. Done something cooler, other than hitting me.”  
“Mm, that may be true.” She agreed. “You shouldn’t had been so close.” She snapped.  
“Yeah, in hindsight, I should’ve been more aware of my surroundings. There's nothing like taking a full blow to the arm with a steal fan.”  
Courtney smirked a little. “Heh, yeah well, I’m surprised you didn’t poof. I had quite a bit of practice during the last couple of weeks and I've even poofed my uncle And he's pretty hard to poof.”  
An audible gasp from Nila. “Did I show you up? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I-"  
Courtney cut her off “Show me up? Pfffft, yeah, as if.” She gave a small, nervous chuckle, playing with a curl of her hair. “No need to worry about showing me up. You couldn’t do that even if you tried.”  


Nila ducked her head between her shoulders, looking at the girl. “Right, right. Well anyway, um, please excuse my sister. She’s a bit of a hot head, but she really is a good person. Really she is. She just had to get used to you."  
Courtney looked shocked, blinking a few times. Then she seemed to had composed herself. “Hey, don’t worry about it. I actually have a very close friend like that. And besides, I’m quite used to people like her and I can EASILY hold my own as well as be the bigger person, when I need to. I didn’t blow her 100 ‘feet across town when she bumped me, after all. Though that idea _was_ swimming through my mind.”  
Nila stiffened up. That sounded pretty far. And couldn’t Blanca do that as well? Gee wiz, she had so many powers and some of them were quite similar but somehow different. It was hard to keep track of all of them. Where was she anyway? Knowing her, she probably speed walked right after Seren bolted from the group.  
“Well, I truly appreciate you not using my sister as a kite. Even though she has her super jump, she’s still not too fond of flying. Oh! I wasn’t supposed to say that.” She sucked in some air, face palming herself.  


“Mm, guess the cat’s out of the bag. I'll be sure to take a mental note of that." She gave a deep Cheshire cat grin. "But you know what else’s out of the bag?" She pulled her bag in front of her, rummaging through it. "This limited time only invitation to my sleep over!”She pulled out an envelope.  
Nila looked at the glittery envelope in the gem's hand, then back at her. “Like.. sleeping over a house?”  
“Yes, yes, that’s just the basis. Well, of a _regular_ sleepover that is. THIS one is going to be on the beach. And there’s MUCH more to it then a regular 'ole sleepover. So, what do you say? Don’t make me waaaait” She waved the rectangular envelope in her hand, the circular, white gem where her left eye would be, glistening in the morning light.  
“But I don’t know anything about sleepovers and I don’t really know you...”  
“Great! So that’s a yes! The address and everything else that you’ll need is on the back of the invitation.” She looked back, waving to the girl that was gently pulling on Seren's arm. She looked away, not waving back “Come on! We should really go!” She said.  
“Right!” She turned to Nila. “Well, duty calls. “ She put the rest of the envelopes in her back. “See ya tonight! Believe me. “She summoned her fan, and blocked the lower portion of her face. “you wouldn’t want to miss it.” She stood there mysteriously for a few moments, then the weapon vanished and she laughed. “Tootalou.”  
Courtney walked passed Seren and the girl, making her way to Miranda. “I can't believe you actually waited. I told you that I was going to meet you there” Courtney said to her. They entered the school.  
”I wonder what that was about.” Seren asked..  
The girl shrugged, glaring at Courtney as they went inside. "I don't know.. but maybe it's best if you stay away from her and her friend. They're bad company. Especially the blond one."  
"But she seems okay to me." said Seren.  
Nila was walking pass, not paying attention to them, opening the envelope carefully and sliding out a piece of paper.

Seren waved back. "She was laughing quite a bit with my sister."  
"That was your sister?! Then you HAVE to tell her about Courtney and Miranda."  
"Oh... Okay, sure. I'll give her a heads up. Wouldn't want us both to get in trouble." They started walking up to the school. "Looks like my other sister, Xanthe almost picked a fight already."  
"The yellow one? She's your sister too?"  
"Yeah, I have three. The other one.. doesn't take to kindly to crowds and she probably bolted the moment she had the chance to."  
"Wow, four gems. How does your parents manage with all of those personalities?"  
"They're... more so our guardians." Seren rubbed her neck. The hybrid opened the door, allowing Seren to walk in first "Thanks. -And we make do. With lots of love and dedication and whoaaaa! Look at this place! The high ceilings, the shiny floors, the beautiful stairs, and the endless row of lockers.” She gaped, ”This place looks even BETTER than the ones I seen on t.v. I can’t wait to explore this school some more!.” She cheered.  
“You make this school seem like an oasis.”  
“Mm, I don't see why it wouldn't be” Seren pulled out a piece of paper from her pocket and unraveled it. She took a quick look at her homeroom number. Room 321.  
"Oh you'll find out very soon."  


The warning bell rung.  
“Looks like we have to part ways." Seren stuffed the piece of paper back in her pocket. "Maybe we’ll bump into each other again.. uh, figuratively speaking, that is.” She laughed.  
A few seconds later the girl started chuckling. “Oh, I get it now.” She rubbed her arm. “Sorry, I’m still having a bit of trouble with puns.”  
“Noo, it’s fine, it’s fine. Sooo...what is your ..nationality?.”  
“I'm Japanese.”  
“Really! Cool! I think my sister Blanca is self teaching herself Mandarin."  
“They.. aren’t the same.” She said softly.  
“Mm! Right, right, right! Of course!..." She laughed nervously. _Good going, Seren.. You don't know the difference between those two languages.. They have two different names for crying out loud!_ "Well, perhaps you can teach me a bit? I mean, I heard that Japanese was like, one of the hardest languages, but it would still be pretty cool to learn it.”  
"Sure! I'd love to." She held onto the straps of her back pack. "じゃあ。またね。 (Jaa, matane- Well, see ya later."  
Seren looked at her."  
She giggled. "That was your first Japanese lesson. It means 'see you later'."  
"Ahhh, gotcha. Jaa, matane!"  
She gave an approving nod. "You're a natural." She smiled. And with that, she started running up a flight of steps to try and beat the bell."  
Seren was ecstatic. She just stood there, thinking about her friendly encounter with the girl. Did she really make a friend already!? She made her way up the stairs to the third floor and found the classroom before the last bell rung. She sat down, realizing something.  
She never got her name.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

It was during second period when she seen Blanca in her class. Seren was coming from the restroom, that just so happened to be right by Blanca's algebra class. The gem, looking off into the distance. Seren turned the knob and opened the door. The teacher's back was turned as he wrote some equations on the chalkboard. "Return to your seat, please. Class is almost over."  
Seren closed the door.  
"Thank you."  
And headed for an occupied desk to Blanca. She was near the windows, almost in the back of the class. "Hey, can I sit here please?" Seren grinned. Her eyes, bright and welcoming.  
"S, sure." said the boy, blushing.  
"Thanks!"  


He shoved the papers back into his binder, closed it and shuffled an unoccupied desk in the very back.  
Blanca was already looking her way before Seren sat down. "What are you doing in my algebra class, Seren?"  
"Well, I was just in the neighborhood,or, _the hallway._ " she winked. Blanca was not amused. "and I seen you sitting at your desk all. You didn't seem too happy."  
"Well, it's algebra. It's not my favorite class in the world."  
"Then think about your favorite classes! What are some of the classes that you have next?"  
"There's my cooking and baking class, chemistry and art."  
"And you like two out of those three, right? Well, why don't you settle on thinking about them. You need to get yourself exited for what's to come! You shouldn't have this one little class lower your spirits."  
Blanca gave a small smile. "Easier said than done. But I guess it wouldn't hurt to try."  
"That's the spirit!"  
"Keep it down in the back, please." The teacher was still writing the last few equations down.  
Blanca and Seren giggled. "Alright, Blanca. I gotta go. I need to get my stuff from class before the bell rings. " She left the room.  
"Please return to your s-" The teacher turned around and stopped. Noticing that everyone was still in their seats, he chalked it up to the wind from the windows hitting the door.

~~~~~~~~~~~


	5. The Gem Glow Juvey; First day of school! PT 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A continuation of the girls' first day of school.

During fourth, Seren was bored out of her mind in FOT class. She peered out the window, wondering how Blanca was holding up and how her other sisters were doing. The teacher was going over the supplies that the class was going to need for this semester. Seren wasn't paying attention. She was still looking outside.  
Suddenly, a stray baseball came flying pass the window. A red gem caught the ball as it was rolling away and threw it. She ran back as quick as a rocket. _Now, THAT looks cool._  


"Excuse me ma'am. May I be excused please?" asked Seren sweetly.  


"You may. Just take the hall pass with you."

Seren made her way out the door, with the hall pass in her skirt pocket. She left out of one of the side doors of the school and started walking around the perimeter. Eventually she found the field. It was MUCH bigger than the average sized baseball field (most likely due to giving the gems and hybrids more room to use their powers) and it was much further down from Seren's FOT class. Whoever had hit that ball was definitely or a gem or hybrid. The same red gem that she seen grabbing the ball was now at the bat. There were two girls, then Xanthe, then five other girls after her, sitting down in the dugout. Everyone looked pretty cool in their gym uniform. The red gem struck out three times, but managed to hit the ball the third time. It didn't go too far, but she still managed to slide and touch first base before a green gem tagged her with the ball. A human girl came up to bat. She took a deep breath. One swing _foul_ , two, three, four more swings _all fouls._ On the fifth swing, she hit the ball!!! Straight towards the pitcher... _caught_ Strike Out. As the girl was walking away from the base, Seren couldn't help but think that the ball seemed to be much slower than the baseball that were being thrown at the gem. 

A hybrid came up to bat. She struck out all three times. Then it was Xanthe's turn. Seren was going to cheer from where she was, over by the outfield, but she didn't want to distract her. Xanthe had a stance like a professional baseball player. Her intense look staring at the pitcher. The ball was thrown. _incredibly fast_. Similar to when the red gem was at bat. Xanthe hit it and the ball went up, up, up and all the way back down behind the line. _foul_. Another ball was thrown and Xanthe swung hard, hitting it. The ball came flying at Seren, passed her, It was rolling down the field. Seren just stared at it. 

"Dude! What is your problem! Why didn't you run for it!" said a tall, human girl. 

"Oh, I.. didn't want to interfere." 

There was some cheering behind them as the red gem ran to the home plate. 

"Interfere??" She caught the ball and threw it hard. "What, do you WANT them to win? Keep your head in the game, smalls!" You're killing me!" She started running back. 

"Hey, I'm not THAT small!" Seren shouted. "And I would never do such a thing!" 

Xanthe was at third base. She was staring down at the field. _No, that can't be her.. She... doesn't have my class?_ Xanthe turned her attention back to the game. She was slowly inching off of third base. The first ball was thrown and a first strike was made. Xanthe inched away a bit more. The second ball was thrown, but this time it was thrown towards her. She managed to run back and touch third base. "Ha! Too quick for you!" She said. 

"Not even close." said the pitcher, with a very familiar, distinctive raspy voice. Miranda. she held the third baseball in her hand. the other hand fixing her hat. She turned back around, turning her attention back to the batter. A third ball was thrown a bit slower and the ball was hit. _foul_. The catcher was doing something with her fingers. One finger down, while the other three were curled up. Miranda shook her head. The catcher took a quick glance at Xanthe inching away from the base, then to the hybrid in front of her, then back at Miranda. She put three fingers down and tapped her left inner thigh and Miranda nodded, an evil grin on her face. They found a weakness in the hybrid's swing and decided to use that as a leverage to get both of them out. 

Miranda wound up slowly and threw the ball closer to the ground and to the left and just as expected, the left handed hybrid swung, the ball going towards the first baseman. Xanthe started running. _Caught_ The girl was out. The baseman threw the ball towards the catcher and just as Xanthe was sliding towards home base, she was tagged with the ball. "Out!" shouted the empire. 

"What do you mean, 'out'! I was already at the home plate before she even caught the ball!" 

"Miss Ishi, I was watching the game quite closely. Your fingers didn't touch the edge of the plate, until she tagged your shoulder." 

Xanthe growled and stared back at a smug-looking Miranda. "She cheated!" Xanthe shouted. "She has it out for me and my sister, I just know it! She did that one purpose."

"Ma'am, please-" 

"Did _what_ exactly on purpose? My keen eye catcher and I seen an opening and simply went for it. If you call that cheating, then all of baseball history is a cheating sham." 

"But... but..." Xanthe was at a loss for words. Miranda was right. Finding an opponent's weakness and using that as an advantage isn't cheating. Though she wouldn't give her the satisfaction of letting her know that she was technically right. 

"Ladies, ladies, enough!" 

Xanthe's hands were sparking with electricity. Miranda caught a glimpse of it. _So this one makes electricity... ___

____

"That's it! Miss Ishi. Bleachers. There will be no usage of powers in this kind of manner." 

Xanthe finally came to her senses. And the teacher was right too. Wow, all of those years of keeping her anger in check and she managed to start sparking up, the moment she started to get agitated. She took a mental note to see her Taekwondo sensei and to talk about her self-discipline again." 

"Yes, Mrs. Suugz." and she took her walk of shame to the first row on the bleachers. 

"Alright, let's take a quick break before we switch." 

Seren followed the other players of the field. They went down to the dugout for some refreshments and to check any notifications on their phone. Seren went up the stairs to the bleachers to Xanthe looking both mentally and physically tired. "Heeeeeeya, sis." Seren sat down. 

"Oh goodie.. I had a feeling that was you out on the field.. What are you doing here?" 

"Checking in on my sister, of course." Seren smiled.  


Xanthe didn't answer.  


"Soooo, how are things going so far?"  


"As if you had to ask. Did you not see what happened just now?"  


"Mmm, well yeah. I did, But that wasn't so bad. So you got out and you got a bit upset."  


" 'Upset' is an understatement."

"People get upset all the time. Heck, I've watched a LOT of baseball comps to know that brawls break out quite a bit. Especially with the batter and the pitcher. No big dealio really. I've seen it where they simply change out the pitcher when that batter comes back to base and they change back and resume the game." 

"But all of those years of hard earned "self-discipline.." she made air quotes. "She just got under my skin. I don't think it was me losing that made me mad, it's just _her._ And I'm going to have to see her face for the WHOLE semester. FIVE days a week! Now I'm starting to see what Blanca meant" 

"You can always change classes." 

Xanthe twisted her face up at Seren. "What kind of a gem do you take me for? I'm not going out that easily." She looked at the field and breathed out. "Eh, guess I'm just going to have to grin and bear it.. Without the grinning part." 

"Would it help if I come pass here? FOT is boring anyway." 

"I don't need your 'emotional support', Seren. That's almost as bad as changing classes. Maybe even worse." 

"Just thought I'd asked." Seren shrugged innocently. 

Silence. 

_How am I going to brighten up Xanthe's day? Maybe I can use the same method on her that I used with Blanca? No, that wouldn't work.. Mmm, maybe, maybe not.. Maybe I have to switch it up a bit._

"Hey." Seren got closer to Xanthe. A complacent look on her face. 

"Seren, stop it. You're too close." She moved away. _Seren should really work on personal space._ "And why are you looking like that?" 

"Are you honestly telling me that you're going to have someone ruin gym for you? That's like, your favorite class, no?" 

"Yes...?"  


"Then why focus on that one, bruised up apple in the field." She gestured at the field in front of them, a humorous look to her face at the pun she just made "when there are sooo many apples getting refreshments downstairs right now?"

.... 

There was a dull thud sound from underneath them and the sound of something pouring out. A unison of "Ooooooooo's" from below.

"Kasey spilled the Gatorade!" One tattle tailed. 

"Did not!" 

"Ooooo, Mrs. Suugz!" Said another voice. 

"It wasn't me!" 

....

"Maybe because that one bruised apple has a talking face." 

This made Seren chuckle. "You're funny." Seren leaned back. "Still, that shouldn't bother you. Especially with the teacher being around. Things shouldn't go too far out of hand. She'll see to it that things go by smoothly." 

Xanthe loosened up a bit. "I hope you're right about that."

"I have a good feeling that this class will get better. Even with the anthropomorphic apple." This was Xanthe's turn to chuckle. "Oh, Seren. What are we going to do with you?" she shook her head. "I'on'know." She said causally. She thought about something sneaky, then turned her body towards Xanthe. "But, I vowed to make you happy before I leave. Sooo, looks like I have to take matters into my own hands." 

"No! Don't even think about it! I'm already in good spirits now!" 

"Uh, uh. I don't buy it one bit. I'm just gonna do this for good measure." 

"Don't you dare!" 

Out of all of the four sisters, Xanthe was the most ticklish. And every now and again, when words or encouragement don't quite work on her or work as well as the sisters want them to, they tend to use a more physical approach of tickling her. _Childish?_ Maybe. A cheap tactic to make Xanthe smile? _definitely._ But it was just sooo much fun and she didn't seem to _not_ hate it perse. 

"Seren!!" Xanthe was in a fit of giggles. "Stop! Hahahaha, stop! Or I'll, I'll" fits of giggles. "I'll shock you!" More giggling as Xanthe managed to form small sparks of electricity on her fingertips. Sparks flickering in and out as she tried to summon them through her fits of laughter. Xanthe would always warn that she was going to shock them, though she would never follow through with it. 

Seren shook her head. "Nuh uhh. I have to make sure that you're happy!!" 

Xanthe was stomping hard on the bleachers, laughing. A few of her classmates looking up from the dugout to see what was going on, Miranda being one of them. A scowl on her face. _Was this her friend? Another sister? Maybe I should put her down on my list too.._

"Alright, alright!! I'm happy!!" She laughed "And I promise I _WON'T_ shock you if you stop.!!" 

"Mmmmmmm, should I believe you?" 

"Yes!! Yes you should!" More laughing. "You have my word!!" 

"Mmmmmm, okay. I guess I can believe you." Seren stopped and Xanthe was trying to catch her breath. "Oh, you are so going to get it." She said through pants. 

"See ya later, alligator!" Seren dashed down the bleachers, ignoring Miranda's glare at her, and back to her class. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Blanca seen Seren talking to someone by the stairs. They looked like they were really into their conversation, Seren being the most expressive, her hands waving around as she talked. During her expressions, she turned her head and seen Blanca. She waved and Blanca waved back. Blanca lip read a bit, **(That's?) (There's?) my sister, Blanca.** Everything else was indistinguishable as Seren went on her ramble. Blanca gave a side smile. _Looks like she made a friend already. Classic Seren._ She went downstairs to her biology class. 

The school was nearly halfway over.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

"Okay. It's REALLY important that _my_ face expresses 'TOTAL and COMPLETE surprise'! While still looking really, really hot. And I'm thinking something like this:" She cleared her throat. "Oh, for me!? OH! What a TOTAL and COMPLETE surprise!" 

"Mmm, if you ask me, it sounded a bit.. phony.." 

"Hm, guess I need a bit more time to perfect that then." 

Miranda peaked around the corner then turned Courtney.”Okay, I think we’re finally alone. So NOW are you going to tell me why you invited that blue chick?” Her best friend questioned. The sharpness of her voice echoing down the empty stairway. 

The gem shrugged. “I don’t know, she just, reminds me of someone.” 

"...You mean you?”  


“Yes, yes , yes!” She snapped. “She reminds me of me.” She looked down. Then her voice softened a bit “She just, reminds me of myself when I was younger. Before the popularity, before, a lot of things. She seems like a very quiet and sweet gem. But I can’t help but also read that she can also be quite sharp when she needs to. Her character alone was enough for an invite. And THAT’S the first time I’ve ever done that; hand someone an invite because of their personality, instead of both their personality AND there gem power.” She held her head up high. “This WON’T be a reoccurring thing, that’s for sure “  


“Hmm, what exactly is her power?” Miranda thought.  


“Beats me. Something with water? I mean, I’m just basing it off of color. Not to be a color~ist or anything!” She quickly added. “I have a looot of blue friends.. In fact, one of my closest friends is blue-”

“Uhg, relax, Courtney.” 

"And I have friends of ALL colors. Not just blue." She had to hurry up and add. 

Miranda waited, staring at Courtney. Impatience on her face. 

"I'm done.." She said. 

"Anyway, what if she doesn't even have any powers or any weapons? There's still _one_ particular person who has yet to manifest a single power OR a weapon." 

Courtney knew exactly who she was talking about. "Hehe, yeeeaahhh." She said smugly. 

"-and what if she doesn't have any powers or anything?" 

"Well, at least I like _her_ personality. "So whether she has powers or a weapon or weapons or not, I still wouldn't mind." 

Miranda's mind wondered a bit after that. She leaned back on the ceramic wall, looking at the clock. School was already half way over. “Hey, uh, Courtney? I’m going to head to the auditorium real quick.” 

“But isn’t he freshman orientation going on down there?” 

“Oh, shoot! Must've slipped my mind.” She acted. “But I left something really important down by the stage. Uh, my costume, for the school play. I’ll meet you after 7th period.”  


“I STILL can't believe you’re in that play.”  


“Hey, what can I say? I may be some rude and ruthless bully, but I also pride myself in eating healthy and living a healthy life. How else am I going to intimidate these students with these.” She flexed a muscle “Or catch up to them when they’re running?”  


“Hm. Well then, have fun retrieving your cute widdle custome.” Courtney teased. She took the steps two at a time, twirling the hall pass on her index finger.

..............................

 

After about 20 minutes of scanning the auditorium, Miranda finally found her. She was sitting on the far left side, in the back seats. She was chatting with that sore loser chick that also had the nerve to yell at Courtney. They seemed to be so into their conversation, the yellow gem cracking a smile and laughing. _How dare she have a nerve to laugh. She has no idea what she got herself into,_. The same pink gem that was talking to Courtney's little rival at the start of school and the same one from the baseball field was gabbing to a rather.. mysterious and pasty gem.  


“Welcome class of..!!”  


Her attention was heavily on the blue gem.  


Clapping and laughing amongst the crowd.  


“We ask that everyone stays seated until their section is called to exit the auditorium.”  


Their section was called first and Miranda pushed herself off the wall and made a beeline to the other exit door, in hopes of catching her if she made a left and down towards the main hall.  


“...was pretty informative.” She caught the last bit of what the pasty gem was saying.  


“They literally wasted two hours on a bunch of nonsense “ said the yellow one, Zinc? Zancs? Her name had escaped her.  


She continued. "They basically informed us of stuff that we already know: arrive on time, have near to perfect attendance, do your work, go to coach class if needed, start thinking about colleges, don’t act a fool, tell an adult or supervisor if you’re being bullied, must be in proper uniform attire, and to watch out for senior week.”  


“Wow. That.. that actually pretty much sums it all up.” Said the blue target.  


“See?” The yellow one gave a smug look.  


Miranda coughed to get their attention.

“You.” Xanthe said in an icy tone. “Yes, it is me.” The Miranda shrugged. Hands in her pockets. “Hey, sorry about earlier you two." She said calmly. "It was just too early, in the morning, ya' know? Woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Say, can I speak to you for a second?” She asked Nila. 

Xanthe grabbed Nila's arm. “I don’t trust her one bit.” She whispered through clenched teeth. 

She yanked her arm from Xanthe's grip. “Xanthe, please. Just relax.” She said in a normal tone. She stepped up to the girl. “And to what do I owe this unspecified visit and to a freshman seminar of all places “ 

Miranda looked angry, but the look quickly disappeared with a “welcoming” smile. She laughed a humorless laugh and put her arm around Nila's shoulder. “Well, Courtney told me how she invited you to.” She looked at Xanthe, Seren and Blanca. “Umm, can you please excuse us? This is a pretty _private_ conversation. I’ll be sure to send her back to you safe and sound when I’m done.” And with that, she began to walk off with Nila wrapped tightly under her arm. 

Xanthe glared and Blanca looked shocked. Her eyebrows raised up. “With what Xanthe had told me earlier with the whole debacle, I don’t feel comfortable leaving her with you.” Blanca made a very intimidating look. Miranda seemed to shrink to that a bit, looking away, but quickly composed herself. She turned her attention to the pink, happy-go-lucky gem, purposely not looking at the mysterious and not gonna lie, quite scary and rather intimidating bleached gem.

“I understand your concern, but you should be more concerned of I had wanted to speak to _her_. “ She pointed at Xanthe. “Since she _was_ the one who yelled at Courtney. This girl right here.” She hugged Nila “was just an innocent bystander. She’s not a threat at all.” She smiled wickedly. 

The three sisters didn’t look convinced. “Blanca, it’s okay, really. I’ll meet y’all out front by the bus stop. I think I can handle a couple more hours of school.” 

Xanthe looked like she was about to say something, but swallowed down a growl, letting a breath out, _Instead of her electricity._

The three sisters watched as the mysterious girl and Nila walked down the hall and around the corner. 

“As I was saying.” She began. “Courtney told me how she invited you to her slumber party. And isn't that’s just terrific? Not many people get to go to her slumber parties." They turned the corner and stopped by a water cooler. "The hard part was getting invited, which you did, just, ever so flawlessly. But tell me this, uh.. Blue. Mind if I cal ya Blue?" She didn't let Nila answer that. "Did you have anything special planned for Courtney? Hmmm, I don’t know, a gift, a cool performance, anything?” 

Nila bit her lip. “Well, now that you mention it, I don’t. That didn’t come to my mind, honestly." 

"Mm, figures." 

I'm, kinda new to this whole school and social stuff., being homeschooled and all. Not to mean that all home schooled kids don’t have an social skills!! O know that everyone's experiences are different. It’s just that, for us personally, our family is pretty strict when it comes to outings with friends and school studies not being taught by them and stuff. Like, they were soo mad when it was announced that we had to go to sch-” 

“Mm, tough. Well anyway, I actually have a small, teeny weeny idea of a nice little gift.” 

“Really? And what is that?” 

“Use your power. Uh, you do have powers, don’t you?” 

Nila slouched down a bit, nodding cautiously.. _Why? What did having powers have anything to do with anything?_

"Then use whatever power you have to stop a corrupted gem” 

“Uh, what? That’s, oddly specific.” 

“Yes, it is, I know. Bare with me here, yeah? I’ve overheard these two, not-so-Courtney-approved students talking about how they were going to unleash a corrupted gem to sabotage her sleepover.” 

“..What!” she shouted. 

Miranda got close to Nila's face. “Sh, sh, sh!!” She silenced her. Students were looking towards them. Miranda laughed nervously. “Yes, they actually do have rare gems here." She laughed again and the students went back to focusing on their walk to class or on their conversation with their friends or both. “Pipe down! I can’t have the whole school knowing. Heck, I wasn’t supposed to know! Look, that’s what’s probably going to happen, okay?” 

“Wait, I thought that all corrupted gems were cured.” 

“Some sick minded people actually managed to copy the corruption light and have some of that stuff stored up. There have been some rare occurrences of people that have it, using it to torture gems.” 

“But that’s illegal!" 

"Yes, I know, but some of these sick minded people are torturing gems with this stuff." 

"But that's illegal!" She said again. 

"Uhg! I know, I know!! There are people who do illegal stuff, deal with it." 

"Wait... why not just tell an authority? They actually had a segment about that at the auditorium.“ 

“Why should they waste their time in getting involved in something like this? I don’t really want the kids involved to get suspended or.. expelled.. I don’t want anything bad to happen to them but at the same time, I don’t want that corrupted gem spoiling Courtney's night.” 

“Wow, that’s very kind of you..?.” 

“Miranda.” She answered. 

“That’s very kind of you, Miranda, to not want them to get in trouble. My sisters and I cover for each other all of the time." 

“So you know my sympathy.” She said innocently, placing both hands on her chest. 

“Of course.” 

“So you’ll help!” She perked up. 

“Well, I didn’t quite say..I mean.. How do you even know I can defeat this monster? How come you can’t ..Do it..” Nila answered herself. A human was absolutely no match for a gem. Even if the corrupted gem was a pearl or a verdite. 

Miranda scowled at Nila's assumption. 

“Okay.” She breathed out “I’ll do it.” 

“Great!” She said immediately, taking her hands out of her pockets and clapping her hands together. “Be on the lookout. As will I.” She gave a small nod and disappeared among the crowds. 

Nila stood for a bit, replaying their conversation. _Was she really going to do this? Should she really trust this Miranda girl?_

~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Seren only had one more shot to try and talk to Nila. She was still trying to hold onto her vow of making her sisters happy. And though she couldn't get the EVERY single student to be happy, she still managed to help a few students out, both those who were and weren't in her classes or even in her grade.  
This was their last period. Nila was in her biology room rinsing her hands off. Miranda was putting her syllabus in her folder. She looked up to see some hazard symbols plastered on the wall. She soon concocted yet another plan.  


She walked over to Nila, at the sink. Her hands clasped and behind her back. "Hey there, partner." She leaned on the counter. "I see you're washing your hands. That's good. Very good."  


"Oh, hey Miranda.. We're, partners now?"  


"Of course we are. We have the whole semester together, so why wouldn't we be?"  


"Well, that doesn't necessarily mean-"  


"You know I was thinking." Miranda interrupted. "Saving Courtney's sleepover from the possible corrupted gem is a good thing to do, but then I was wondering.. Would that classify as a good present though? Especially if there's no corrupted gem."  


"I was thinking about that.. I wanted to kind of give her something that she can keep."  


"Yes, I know exACTLY what you mean. And I know just the thing too."  


"And what is that?"

"Nothing too much really. But for a last minute present, the 'do not cross' sign on the forbidden part of the shore of the beach would definitely make for a good present for outside Courtney's bedroom. She'll flip." 

“I don't know Miranda.” 

"It's practically falling off anyway. All you have to do is just... pluck it." 

"But isn't that... stealing?" 

"I prefer to think of it as borrowing without asking with no intention to return." 

Nila was thinking about it. 

Seren finally found the classroom. A student was handing out some supplies as the teacher was searching for something in the supply closet. Seren opened the classroom door and ran up to hug Nila. "Niley wiley!" She cheered. 

"Seren!" Nila snapped out of her thoughts quickly. "You... don't have my class?" 

Seren shook her head, still hugging Nila. Her hair swishing left and right on Nila's chin. "Nope! But I wanted to see how my sis was doing!" 

_Sister..._

"So, how are yoouu?" She stood back, grinning up at Nila. 

"Sorry, ..uh, Pink? But your sister and I was in a middle of an important convo here." 

"Oh, don't worry, it won't take long." Said an oblivious Seren. 

"It won't take long for you to get in trouble either." She said. "You're not even suppose to be in this class" 

"I have a hall pass." Seren showed her. 

"No, that's not what that's for. You can't walk around the school, going where ever you please, JUST because you have a hall pass. That's not how it works." 

"Well how the heck was I supposed to know? Everyone else seemed to not mind it." 

"Well, now you know, so you can leave now.. or else." 

"Or else what?" Seren teased. 

"Or else I'm telling." Miranda crossed her arms. Her hands clasped tightly to her sides.

"Oh, she's good." Seren frowned. "Guess my vow will have to wait until after school. That would still counts, right?" she asked Nila with her puppy-dog eyes. _Uhg, she's so babyish and wholesome it's nearly sickening._

Nila pat Seren's shoulder. She giggled "Of course it will." _And she's not making it any better. Does she get babied like this all of the time?"_

"Whoohoo!" shouted Seren. 

The students stared back at her. "You're too loud." said the teacher still in the supply closet. 

"See ya later, Niley." Seren gave Nila another hug resulting in an eye roll from Miranda and she walked out of the classroom. 

As soon as she left, Miranda was quick to start the conversation back up, "So, Niley." 

Nila snorted. 

"What's so funny?" 

"Seren calls me Niley. Well, not all the time, but that's her nickname for me. My real name's Nila." 

"So, _Nila_ , about that offer. What do you say?" 

"Can I... please have some more time to think about it? 

Miranda gave out an annoyed growl. "Fiiiiiinne. Here, give me your phone." 

Nila reached in her pocket and pulled out a small, flip phone. 

"What is this?" Miranda held the phone with her thumb and index finger. 

"My phone." 

"Can you... only call on this?" 

"I can text too, though it's not unlimited." 

"Wow, sad life. Alright then, whatever." She flipped her phone open and put in her number under the letter M. _I don't have time to go 1,2,3 1,2,3, just to type out my own name. _"There, I put my number in your phone and I sent myself a message." She handed Nila back her phone."You have until 4:15 to give me an answer." She enunciated on the words 'four fifteen'. "That's when I get home from target practice."__

____

____

__

_Nila shrunk down into her seat._

__

__

"Okay class, time to begin!" said the teacher. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“Over here, Nila!” Seren shouted be a tree nearby the bus stop. The three sisters were sitting down at a table shaded by the tree. She ran over to them, her thoughts still on the two different conversations she had with Miranda earlier. 

“Hey guys!” She tried hard to say with as much enthusiasm as possible. 

“Something is wrong. What’s wrong, Nila?” asked Blanca. Her pale, focused eyes staring right at Nila. 

She looked away from the stare down. “Huh? What do you mean?” 

“You know exactly what she means. You’'re acting a bit off we can tell already.” Xanthe stepped in. 

“Don't tell me it's because of that girl from earlier." said Blanca. 

"Oooooo, so help me if it is!" Xanthe gripped onto the edge of the table, her nails, digging into the wood. 

"What are you talking ab-" 

“Nila, just tell us what’s going on!” Xanthe snapped. Nila winced at the shout. Xanthe immediately regretted it. She sighed. “Sorry. I’m just a bit worked up. I know how you can get and I just _don’t_ trust that girl. Or her blonde friend, for that matter.” 

Nila sighed. A huge frown on her face. “She and I were talking about Courtney’s sleepover that I’ve been invited to.” She pulled the envelope out and pulled the letter out, glitter falling on the table. 

“Who puts an actual address for a certain part of the beach? Are.. wait, are these freakin' coordinates? Or you kidding me?” said Xanthe completely shocked. 

Nila didn’t answer her question and continue with her story. “She said that." She leaned in and everyone else did the same. "That someone might unleash a corrupted gem at Courtney's sleepover.” 

"How?" asked Blanca. 

"Apparently some people have managed to copy that same corruption song and that they use it to torment gems." 

A gasp from Seren. "But that's illegal!" She whisper shouted. 

"I know! That's what I said! And just in case that happens, she wants me to be there to help contain it." 

“Is this some kind of sick initiation? Nila, I don’t like this one bit.” said Blanca. “And what about anyone else? Will they be helping you?” NOT to say that you should go on and do it because you have backup, I’m just saying, are there other people? 

“Um, not that I know of, no.” 

“Oh, come on, Nila, I thought you were smarter than this. Can’t you see that this is clearly a trap?” said Xanthe trying to suppress her anger. 

“I know but-" 

“Nila, Xanthe is right. This could very well be a trap and you certainly wouldn’t want this on your permanent record now, would you?” Blanca waved her pointer finger. 

“No..” She said. “But what am I going to do now? What if the gem monster does come, what are we going to do?”.

Xanthe sighed. "I guess I have no choice but to help you as well.” 

“But how can you help? _You_ weren’t invited.” said Seren. 

“And don’t want you to get in trouble, Xanthe.” said Nila. 

“I'll just have to be careful. And I don't have to be RIGHT in the middle of the sleepover. I can just be close by, in the vicinity.” 

The bus pulled up and they began to board along with one other kids. 

“Sorry about all of this guys. If I had just told Miranda 'no' from the start, we wouldn't be having this conversation and being all worried.” Nila said. 

“The main part is that you told us. And now we can try and get you out of it.” said Blanca. She stared at Nila. _Does she know that I'm hiding something else?.. Like that sign that I'm supposed to-_

"Right." said Nila, trying to quite down her mind. 

They sat down on the bus. Nila with a very talkative Seren and Blanca, with a cold, stone-faced Xanthe. “Tell the truth, Blanca..Am I ..Overreacting?” 

Blanca was writing down what happened in school and her opinions about them. _Nila was right. Writing stuff down_ is _pretty relaxing._

**Not in any particular order: Homeroom was literally us just sitting in class for like twenty minutes. English was better than what I had expected. The teacher seems very kind and pleasant and we’ve been given a pretty interesting book to read. I didn't care too much for Geometry. And I can NOT stand Algebra, though it was a very pleasant surprise to see Seren in my class. I wonder if she knew that she was technically skipping? Poor thing, I should've told her about that.. I hope she knows about it now. I should ask her later on about that, if I don't forget.**

**In my cooking/baking class, we basically learned the basics, like what various cooking utensils were used for and what yeast, oil, powder, pasts and other base elements were good for and other things. Granted, I already knew all of that beforehand from watching cooking and baking shows and already being a part of a cooking class; nevertheless, it was a nice little refresher and I can’t wait until we start cooking and baking! Especially baking! That's my favorite. The teacher told us that our very assignment would be something small. Baking 4 cupcakes.**

**Biology was quite interesting, especially when one compared it to gem biology, though I did find myself getting a bit confused once the teacher started moving away from talking about body and molecular stuff to talking more about the equation side of biology. I just stayed in the quad during lunch period, since I don't eat. Some girl came up to me and asked how I got my hair so spiky and I simply said that “My appearance is just a conscious manifestation of light." Then she says, "Oh, I know how that is." Though I hardly doubt she does, since she was a human and all. And we sat there and had a bit of small talk. I'm honestly actually surprised that anyone would even come up to talk to me.Though she probably just didn't have anywhere else to sit or have much else to do, so this was probably just a onetime thing. ******

********

********

**Spanish class is extremely different than Mandarin, as one would assume. I definitely have to get used to all of those conjugations. Oh! And on my way to my fourth period class, I seen Seren talking to some new girl. It amazes me how carefree and jovial and empathetic Seren can be and how easily she can make friends and bring people together.**

Blanca finished her last sentence, looking up. "Hm?" 

“About the girl. Did they really need help with this corruption? Why not just call the authorities? Who cares if they get into trouble, they shouldn’t have planned something like that anyway!" 

"No, you weren't overreacting. I, too, have a bad feeling about this. But it's how you go about it. Screaming and shouting, especially to someone like Nila is definitely not the right approach." 

"I knoooow." Xanthe burried her face in her hands. "I still feel bad yelling at her." She looked up at Blanca. "I haven't been able to control my anger lately.. But that's beside the point, we need to get to the bottom of this. I really think she has it out for us ever since this morning." 

"What happened this morning?" 

"Oh right, you bolted before that even happened. I'll tell you about it later, but long story short, that girl and her gem friend got into a little debacle with Nila and I." 

"Nila?" 

"Okay, mainly with me." 

Blanca wasn't convinced, raising an eyebrow. 

"Ooookay. JUST me. Nila was just an innocent bystander. But the point is, something is going down at this sleepover and we're going to need to make a plan and go down there." 

"Too bad we weren't invited though. So we can't go. Besides, spying is wrong." 

"You and your morals, Blanca. Who cares if we weren't invited? We’re talking about a could be bad situation here!" 

"There are other ways." 

"Like wait until it's too late and something happens? No thank you. _I'LL_ go myself! I just KNOW that something is up." 

Blanca took a deep breath. "I'll be there." With her conflicting emotions, she finally settled on going. With her morals of not showing up where one wasn't invited and not spying on people, and her anxiety of being around a lot of people, she wasn't going to go. On top of that, she didn't want to admit it, but she was also afraid of what a corrupted gem was capable of. This would be her first time seeing one. But, her sisters mean the world to her and she has to take responsibility into ensuring that all of them are safe, as best as she could. "We only have a couple of hours until the sleepover, so we should come up with a plan soon." said Blanca. 

The bus pulled up to the corner and they got off. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that y'all enjoyed some of the quotes and references from these two chapters. I had a fun time writing it. Especially the baseball part. Any baseball fans out there? xD


	6. The Gem Glow Juvey; The Sleepover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sisters prepare to go to Courtney's sleepover.

“Glad to see that we survived.” Said Xanthe. “Though, this _is_ just the first day... of many.” She shuddered. 

“Well, I don’t think it was too bad. I really enjoyed majority of my classes . Even gym class was oddly invigorating." 

“I’m proud of ya, Blanca. See, told you it wouldn't be too bad.” said Seren. 

"Yeah, fine.The classes weren’t THAT bad" said Xanthe. "And I actually did learn a few things today and I do find myself looking forward to my robotics classes." 

“And I met sooo many new people in each class!" Seren bounced down the sidewalk. "Though there’s one particular person that really stood out. She oddly reminds me of someone...” 

"You mean the girl that I seen you talking to during 4th period?" asked Blanca.

“Yeah, her. She's a sophomore. And a hybrid. And she's in my Biology class AND we have the same lunch period together. And she's teaching me Japanese." 

“That's nice of her. Hey, maybe she’ll be at the slumber party too! Perhaps I can meet her." 

"Yeah.. That's highly unlikely." said Seren. "She doesn't seem to like Courtney.. Like, AT all." 

“Really? Why?” asked Xanthe. 

Seren shrugged “She didn’t say. She just said that she was bad news and that I should stay away. And she told me to tell you the same thing too.” 

“She seemed okay to me and it seems like everyone else is okay with her as well." 

“Perhaps there's just some bad blood between your little friend and Courtney.” Said Blanca. 

"Well if THAT’S the case, then she has no right to tell you who to stay clear from, if it’s something as biased as that.” Nila seemed to be a bit agitated. 

" I was just giving you a heads up, is all." 

Nila started dragging her feet up the steps. Blanca and Xanthe in front of her. "I know you were. I didn't mean to sound so snappy.. I just, have a lot on my mind right now." 

"Oh, ...your memories?" 

"No, thankfully not. I'm talking about some other personal problems." _Like figuring out if I should really take that sign for Courtney or not.._

Her and Seren walked into the house. 

" Hey girls! How was everyone’s day today?” Taffy asked from the kitchen. A sound of a pot being laid on a burner. The sound of sizzling from the stove top. 

Xanthe was already relaxing in her favorite spot; the loveseat. Shoes and cardigan off, with her legs propped up on the arm of the chair. Blanca was straightening her and Xanthe's shoes by the door. Then she moved Xanthe's legs so she could sit down. Xanthe looked annoyed, but didn't say anything. She slouched deeper into the seat, finding another comfortable position.

“It was amazing! I helped out so many people, And I think I made a friend! Seren kicked off her shoes, ignoring Blanca's effort in keeping the shoes nice and neat in a row. She ran into the living to sit down in _her _favorite seat; the right side of the couch by the window.__

__  
_ _

"That's nice to hear, Seren! Nila?" There was some sound of tin foil being ripped. 

"Things were okay." Nila untied her shoes and aligned both her and Seren's still tied shoes in a line by the door and sat on the other side of the couch by Seren.

"Just... 'okay'?" Concern crept into Taffy's voice. 

"Yeah..." Nila was tyring to figure out what to say before Taffy started asking too many questions. She started picking at the fabric of the couch.

"And why is that?" _Ack! Question number one. That warm up question. _She sounded like she was trying to use her neutral voice, but Nila could practically feel the interrogation seeping from that voice as well. _Time to hurry and nip this in the bud. Just simply DON'T talk about the possible corrupted gem OR being juvenile delinquent and stealing a sign._ __

__  
_ _

"I mean, I enjoyed my classes." Nila started, still aimlessly picking at the couch. 

"Is someone bothering you?" Nila stopped. It was the question that she didn't want to hear. But really, did any child want to hear that? Then they would have to tell their parents and that would wind up having their parents knock on the bully's door or go to school to talk the principle or the teachers and then after that, it would just be awkward and sometimes the bully starts harassing the person even more. And then the person being bullied would have to change schools-

_Just don't say anything about Miranda_

Taffy walked out of the kitchen, a half bag of flour in her hand. _Darn it! She must've waited too long before answering. _Her sisters started staring at her. "Oh, what did you say?" Nila poorly acted like she hadn't heard the question.__

__  
_ _

"Is. Someone bothering you, Nila?" Her name. Well at least she didn't use her full name. 

"Oh, no!" She nearly shouted.. "I, uh, Igotinvitedtoaslumberparty!" She quickly blurted out. 

Taffy seemed to relax a bit. Her face softening. "Really? On your.. first day?" 

"Yes!" _Okay, take it down a notch, don't blow your cover and just act casual. _"Yeah, I guess we hit it off pretty good. She invited me after we talked for a bit."__

__  
_ _

"Well that's good, right?" She tried to assure herself. "How you said it had me thinking that someone was worrying you or making you feel uncomfortable." 

Nila swallowed. "No." She tried hard not to look at her sisters for help or comfort. "I, just didn't know how you would react to that." 

"You figured that I would say no?" 

"Honestly... yes." She said softly. "I know how you feel about us going to places by ourselves and hanging out with certain people. Which I don't blame you at all." 

Taffy smiled. "Well maybe, this time, I should let you have a bit of fun. Even if it is on a school night." she looked at the time. 3:38p.m. 

"Really?" 

"Really. However, don't think that I would be doing this very time." Taffy warned. 

"Of course. I wouldn't had thought that at all." 

"So when is it? 

"Mm, if I'm not mistaken, the letter said 7 o'clock." 

"So we'll leave the house around 730, just in case there's still traffic on the road." 

"You're taking us? But your car." 

"It's finally fixed. Though things didn’t go AS smoothly with the car this morning. Apparently the problem was a bit bigger than expected and the car took much longer to work on. Needless to say, I didn’t get home until about a half an hour ago, but I'm just happy that I got it all fixed before something else major happened with the car." She turned to her sisters. "Do any of you three have any plans as well for tonight?" 

"Blanca and I have something we have to do at the beach." said Xanthe 

Nila cut her eye at Xanthe, then quickly looked away before Taffy noticed. _They aren't supposed to be going! _Her mind roared.__

__  
_ _

"Like a sleepover?" 

"Precisely." 

"I have to say, if Blanca is going, then it must be some sleepover." She leaned on wall dividing the kitchen and the living room. "I don't know. Maybe I should be a bit concerned." She teased. 

"You have nothing to be concerned about, Taffy!" said Seren. 

"and you're going too?" 

"Mmm, well I would hope so. I could be Nila's plus one. Maybe if I bring a little gift, that Courtney chick will let me go." 

"A present to a sleepover? Who's ever heard of someone bringing a present over for a sleepover?" _You have no idea._

__  
_ _

"Which is why she'll most likely say 'yes'! She would be touched by me going out of my way to give her a present, that she would let me go to her sleepover." 

"You seem very confident. And how are you going to get this 'present'? " 

"Well... it _would_ be pretty nice if I could walk down by the shopping center," 

"By yourself!" 

"Well, I mean.. I was going to be very careful." 

"You're not going by yourself. You can forget that."

Seren looked downtrodden. 

"But I suppose if you can get one of your sisters to take you, then you'll have my permission to leave." 

Seren perked up to that. "Oookaaaay. So who's one of the lucky ladies?" She looked around. 

"I would go, but Blanca and I have a lot to do before we go to the beach." said Xanthe. 

Blanca nodded. 

"Well then, looks like it's just you and me then, Seren.“ said Nila. "So, when are you planning on leaving?" 

"It might take us some time to get there, so I guess now. I'm keeping my uniform on." 

Taffy made her way back to the kitchen. "Try to get back here by six." 

"Will do!" shouted Seren. 

Blanca got up and stopped them before they could leave. "I know this looks bad now, but Xanthe and I have decided to go. Long story short, we'll have to keep low and observe the beach intently. Sorry, but we have to do this, Nila." 

“I understand." 

“Welp. Then that settles it. Seren goes with Nila to get her gift, then we all go to the beach. Seren, you might as well come with us. Even if you are to be invited, having an extra pair of eyes would make things easier." 

But I wanna have some fun.. Can't I just do both? If you think about it, nobody would expect it.. I can have fun while searching for anything suspicious. I can give y'all the inside scoop of what's going on within the sleepover." 

"Hmm, nice save, Seren." said Blanca. "Alright then. I guess that's it. See y'all two later. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It only took Nila and Seren about 40 minutes to get to the shopping center. It would've been shorter, but they had forgotten how to get there. The finally realized that they only needed to take one bus ride to the train station and take that train just five stops down.

“Huh, this is new. I wonder when they opened this place up?" said Seren in front of a quaint little store at the corner of the block." 

“We haven’t been in this area in over a year, so who knows?” said Nila. 

“Oooooooo!!! They have a cute widdle cat in the window!! Let’s go in!” Seren pulled Nila's arm as she dashed to the door. 

The door bell chimed and the multicolored cat stared up at the two. It’s tail flowing side to side slowly.

“Hey, kitty!” Seren cooed 

.

“Do you think it’s okay to pet it?” Nila extended her arm out slowly, her hand held loosely down. The pet sniffed her hand, then started rubbing its face against her hand "Awwwwwwweeeee." They said in unison.

Seren started scratching the cats head. The cat started purring. "Hey, Courtney seems like the type that would like something chic, right?. I have NO idea what that means exactly, but I heard this popular girl on this t.v show say it. So it must be _some_ kind of true. Oh! There’s an employee! Let’s go ask and see if she can help us find something chic .” She stopped scratching the cat's head and darted down isle 5.

“Yeah, I’ll meet you down there.” Nila said as she rubbed her hand across the cat's back.. 

“Hey! Excuse me! Yeah, do you have something that’s quote unquote 'chic'?” she heard Seren ask from down the hall. 

Nila continued to pet the cat, eventually finding herself sitting at the edge of the small windowsill. The cat walked closer to Nila, putting its two front paws on her knees. The cat some sort of calmness and comfort to it. Nila smiled warmly as the cat found its way on her whole lap. It’s body stretched out over her lap.. She started scratching it’s chin and the cat's nose scrunched up and she laughed at how cute it looked like that. 

“Wow, I’ve never seen her act like that towards anyone but us before.” A voice said in front of her. 

Nila gasped in surprise. Her hand stopping up in mid chin scratch.

Somewhere in the employees lounge, some water shoots up and out of a cup. It goes unnoticed. 

The cat looked up at a shocked and now embarrassed Nila, still purring on her lap. 

In front of her stood a boy that looked a bit around 14 or 15 years old. Peach fuzz of a mustache and a few strands of a potential beard forming at his chin. He had very nice, curly black hair and he was wearing loose-fitting, colorful clothing. He wore a name tag that said Jamaal. 

“Oh! Sorry to scare you. That wasn’t my intention.” He held his hands up. 

“Oh, no, it’s fine, really.” Nila smiled sheepishly. “I can get a bit jumpy at times." _All of the time._ "I was actually supposed to be helping my sister in picking out something nice." 

“You mean that girl looking for 'chic'?” 

She laughed at his wording, though she know that she shouldn’t had. “Yeah, she’s looking for something that’s chic for a classmate of ours." 

“Yeah, I couldn’t really help her with that, so I just took her to my mom. Hopefully she found something for her.” 

Nila started petting the cat's back again, as it continued to rest across her lap.

“She really seems to like you. She's never acted like this to a stranger before. I mean, she’s a nice cat and she doesn’t hurt any of the customers, of course, hence the reason why she’s free to roam the store peacefully, but uh, she's just never been THIS close and THIS affectionate to strangers .” He placed his hand on the cat's head, rubbing her ears gently. “You must have a gift.” He chuckles, showing a bright white smile full of straight teeth. 

Nila hoped that a faint of blush wasn’t showing up on her cheeks. “Oh , you’re too kind.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I never thought of that.. Honestly, I’m more into marine life. Now that’s where my heart is.” 

He shot her another bright white smile and laughed again. “I can see that, now that you mention it. You do where a lot of blue and I’ve seen you a few times at the beach while my brother and I played volleyball.“. 

“Now I’m embarrassed." She buried her face into one of her hands. "I’ve had my fair share of wipe outs on that shore..” 

“Oh! I don’t stare! I mean, I’ve _seen_ you in passing ya'know? But I don’t stare. That’s wrong I.. I try to lower my gaze.” He sputtered out. And was he.. blushing? “Yeah, I, uh. I just go there to have a bit of bro time or family time at the beach.” He recovered. “My family and I really value that. Family morals, I mean.” 

Nila nodded knowingly. “I don’t see that much nowadays. That’s a good thing.” 

“Yeaaahhh, it is,..” he trailed off. 

“Hey Nila! What do you think about this one?” she heard Seren shout. 

Nila looked down the hall to see Seren walking up with the boy's mom. She was holding up a white and purple scarf. “See! It’s white, like her gem! I mean, there _was_ an all white one, but I figured she wouldn’t want anything that was all white and that could get dirty quickly." She paused. "I hope that didn't sound mean just now.. Anyway, I wanted to get another color with it and I think that purple goes really well with it. What do ya think? And the design and the material just _screams_ chic!” Seren chirped. 

“Yeah, that certainly looks nice Seren.. If only I was there to help you pick it out." 

“Eh, don’t worry about it.” She looked at the boy then back at Nila and winked. “Really, _don’t._ ” 

“Um” trying to ignore the heat rising to her face again. “Perhaps I can find something to go along with that scarf. Like some nice gloves or a nice and shiny pendant.” She piped up. 

Nila's phone started vibrating. She took her phone out of her pocket and read the screen.. Miranda was calling here. Her stomach dropped. She flipped her phone up and answered. 

"Hello?" 

"Hey, Nila. You think you can do me a small favor? I'm way too busy over here helping Courtney out" _Though it sounds eerily quiet_ " and I just got a message saying that my present for the whole slumber party is finally ready. Think you can be a doll and pick it up for me?" Miranda told her the address. 

Nila thought about it. _Well, it's just a little present. And it's not too far from here._ "Sure. We're not too far from the metro. We should be able to pick it up in no time." 

"Great, so getting there within 20 minutes shouldn't be too much of a problem then." 

_20 minutes?!?!_ "No, it wouldn't be."

"Perfect."

A beat later. "Oh and don't think I didn't realize that you missed your 4:15 mark."

It finally dawned on her. She looked at the time on her phone. _4:46p.m_ then at the store clock on the wall, in denial that her phone was correct. The boy looked at the clock as well. 

"....-n't get yourself out this easily." She missed what Miranda said at the beginning, putting her phone back to her ear. Just took a deep breath. "I'm going to do it." 

"Excellent decision, Nila. I'm sure you won't regret it." She laughed and hung up. 

Nila closed her phone and stuck it back in her pocket. She looked up. “On a second thought, we don’t have time.” 

“Aw, what?” Seen looked genuinely disappointed at their outing being cut short. 

“Yeah, we have to go pick up something for the slumber party and we don't have much time.” She picked the cat up both gently and correctly and placed it back down on the windowsill and gave her head a few rubs before getting up. 

“Well.. Our outing was pretty nice while it lasted?” 

The boy's mom said something to him in what Nila assumed was.. Urdu? Amharic?, while smoothing down his hair a bit before making her way down an aisle of the store. He responded back and turned to Nila. “Well, I have to go. But uh, it was nice meeting a very pleasant person.” 

"It was nice meeting you as well.” She held out her hand but he held his head down a bit. 

“Sorry. I.. can't touch you.. Ya'know.. Physical contact with the opposite gender.” He scratched his head. 

She pulled her arm back, “Oh! Sorry! Didn’t mean to disrespect your ..Culture?” 

“Oh no! It’s fine! Yeah, not a lot of people know about that.. It’s cool, really.” 

There was a bit of silence. “Well, I uh, gotta go. See ya.” He said and gave her a nod and started walking down the same aisle. 

Nila paid for the scarf and two chucklers bars for Seren. The guy 

his dad perhaps?

who was also wearing colorful clothing, gave her the receipt and waved them goodbye.

They exited out the door with a chime and made their way down to the subway station. 

“If I’m not mistaken, this’ll be our first time heading up north. Awesome, I wonder what kind of stuff they have up there?” Seren swiped her pass through the machine and the triangular doors folded in. 

“Honestly Seren, I think it’s pretty much the same stuff like what we have here. Besides, we’re only going three stops up. It’s not even _too_ far up North.” 

"Yeah, well, still. This will be our first time in Harkings Peight.” They walked down the escalators and waited for the train. 

A few minutes later and the train pulled up announcing what line it was, it’s final destination and the next stop. A “Watch your step” was said as they entered the train. The train was crowded due to rush hour. They stood up; Nila, holding on to the top bar and Seren, holding on to the side bar, by the doors. 

Nila's mind wondered off as she tried to piece together some bullet points on what all she's going to have to do. _Get Miranda's present for the sleepover, go back to the house, get ready, leave the house, see what kind of plan Blanca and Xanthe made up, go the sleepover and sometime before it ends, swipe the sign and give it to Courtney and just hope that nobody catches me and try my best and have fun the rest of the night... without feeling guilty and feeling like a criminal.. Oh! And how can I forget about that corrupted gem that we may or may not have?.._

"Looks like you've seen a ghost." Seren joked 

"I'm just trying to do a mental list and break down what all I have to do. I just think I've broken off more than I can chew with this sleepover." 

"Is there something that I can do?" 

The train stopped. Some people got off and more people got on. The train left the platform a few moments later. 

"Not unless you can shape shift into me and make replicas of yourself." 

"Well, making replicas of yourself is impossible, unless you're a pearl... But I could try and shape shift into you!" She twisted her face and made a few concentration grunts. 

.

"Seren." 

More concentration grunts. "No wait! I think I almost have it!" 

"Seren, I was joking about that. And stop it please, people are watching." 

"Aww... but it felt like I was really getting somewhere that time." 

"Even if you did, I wouldn't had let you really go through with it. This is all my fault and here I am going out of my way to retrieve a present and even worse, I " the train went underground, it's speed increasing and it soon became a bit difficult to make out what she was saying "took on ANOTHER role of stealing a sign!" That slipped out and Nila hoped that Seren didn't hear the last part. Seren stared at Nila, but didn't say anything until the train started to slow down to the next stop. It was easier to hear now. "So is that what you were talking about on the phone?" _She did hear her after all.._. A few people got off and a few people got on the train. A few moments later the doors were trying to close, but they couldn't. They would push out a few centimeters only to fold back in. "Please let go of the door." the conductor announced on the microphone. The doors kept opening a bit and closing for a few seconds more before successfully closing. The train then started to pull away from the platform..

_There's no use of trying to jump around the question._ "Yes.. Apart from helping out the corrupted gem, Miranda had told me that getting that that 'Do Not Cross' sign by the beach would be a good present for her." 

Seren looked disappointed and the fact that it came from _her,_ , someone who looks on the bright side and gives people the benefit of the doubt, made Nila feel even worse. 

"Why didn't you tell us?" 

Nila didn't look at her. " I just didn't want you all to worry. And I knew that Xanthe would've caused a power outage if I had said anything about that." 

"You still should've told us that. You should've told us everything." Seren held onto the bar as the train picked up more speed. Nila had to lean in for them to hear each other, as the screeching and rumbling sound from the train filled the air again. "So what are you going to do now?" Seren asked. 

"I'm not sure yet. Steal the sign and risk going to prison. Show up without the sign and possibly be harassed by Miranda and Courtney and my life BECOMES a prison.. I don't know what's worse.." 

"Well, in real prisons, I think you get to sleep on bunk beds. And bunk beds are pretty cool. 

"So, you're saying that I should steal that sign?" 

"No, no, no! I was just saying, that bunk beds are pretty cool." 

"Yeah... Yeah you're right." 

"Yeah! Especially the top bunks." 

Nila facepalmed. "Noo. Not about the bunks, Seren. I have to steal the sign. I mean, I want to give Courtney a good gift, I want to show Miranda that I'm not chicken and.. I hate to admit but..I really want to fit in and I kinda want those kids to think that I'm cool.. Do you think that that's totally _un_ cool?" 

The train slowed down to a stop and they got off along with a few other people. 

"I wouldn't had thought that things like being cool or uncool would matter to you." said Seren., leaning on the side of the escalator. 

"I know, I know. It usually doesn't.. I don't know what's came over me." 

They got off the escalators and walked a bit further up before getting on another one.

Seren fiddled with the straps of the plastic bag. She sighed "I can't believe I'm saying this but.. I'll help you."

"No way. If I'm going down, I don't want you to go down with me. It's bad enough that you brought yourself into this mess with Blanca and Xanthe. But it would be best if you stayed with them. I'll be able to handle this on my own." 

Seren was about to say something, but Nila quickened her pace off of the elevators and towards the turnstiles. Seren followed behind and they exited out of the metro.

“Well this place is... _different."_ said Seren. They found themselves in a shady-looking neighborhood. A few boarded up houses. Trash scattered about the area and Nila thought she had seen a rat run across the street out the corner of her eye. A blue police camera stood atop of a pole at an intersection. A police siren sounded in the distance. “Quite.” Said Nila looking around. “Stay close to me.” She whispered and they started power walking down to the house.

“Hey look, a community pool! I guess this place isn’t so bad after all, huh?” Seren asked, nudging Nila. She knew. Heck, everyone knew that the pool and anything in regards to water was Nila’s thing! 

“Mmm, I don’t know about this pool. I think I’ll take a pass on that one.” _Except_ for this one.. 

They walked pass the gated pool and walked a few more blocks down to a four story apartment. "I think this is it" Nila said. "2103.. Apartment 11." They walked up the stairs and Nila pressed a button near the person's last name. The letters Mc only on the plaque. The rest of it had been chipped away. 

There was a low buzz and a voice came through. “Hello? “ 

“Uh, hi? Um.. this is Nila? You know.. the one that Miranda sent? To get the-" 

“Yeah, yeah!” She cut her off in a cheery, hoarse voice. “Give me a sec.” The intercom turned off and a few moments later, they heard some footsteps down the steps and to the door. 

The door opened with a deep thud and a petit girl stood in the doorway. She wore all gray and her face was hidden underneath a beanie and a scarf rolled up to her nose. Gray shades blocking her eyes.

“Hey, sorry you had to come all the way down here. I was supposed to give this to her myself, but I woke up with a pretty bad cold... Any who, here ya go.” She held the brown, medium-sized box between Nila and Seren, not sure which one was Nila. 

The gem raised her hand in response and took the box. “Hey, that’s okay. I hope you get better soon.” 

The girl nodded. “Thanks. And I hope that everything ends up going well with Courtney’s sleepover “ She coughed into her scarf and closed the door. 

“I’m so curious as to what’s in the box “ Seren asked giddily. 

“Well, we mustn’t look. It’s not ours to just open and gawk at. Besides, we’ll find out soon." 

Nila and Seren started walking towards the metro. They passed the pool and was about to cross the street when Nila's phone starting vibrating. Nila's stomach dropped again. She looked at her phone to see that Xanthe was calling. 

Nila and Seren started walking towards the metro. They passed the pool and was about to cross the street when Nila's phone starting vibrating. Nila's stomach dropped again. She looked at her phone to see that Xanthe was calling. 

"Good thing we stopped, otherwise, I wouldn't have felt my phone." She flipped it open. "Hey, Xanthe." 

"Hey Nila. Where are you? It's already past six o'clock." 

"Sorry, I.. had to run a quick errand before heading back." 

Xanthe was silent and Nila had a feeling that Xanthe was pinching the bridge of her nose and trying her best to keep calm.“Please don't tell me that this 'errand' has something to do with the sleepover and that Miranda chick." 

Nila bit her lip. 

“Nila,-" 

"It was just a little trip to get her present. " 

_"She_ definitely could’ve gotten it herself." 

Nila could tell that Xanthe's patience was wearing more and more thin, but she still kept her composure. "She’s helping prepare for the sleepover." 

"And she couldn’t get anyone else to do it? Nila, don’t be so gullible!" 

I’m no! I’m simply-" 

"Helping a person that could be secretly trying to hurt you or us!” 

"Look, you, Blanca and Seren will be on the lookout, right? Then just do your part and I'll do mine." Nila snapped. _And mine is apparently stopping some gem beast and swiping a placard.._

_  
_

Silence on Xanthe's end and then a "Fine. But DON'T say I didn't warn you." and she hung up. 

~~~ 

They got home about 15 minutes later. The clock read 6:26p.m and Nila dash in her room to quickly pack up. Seren threw the empty chucklers wrappers in the trash and grabbed a water bottle from the fridge before heading to her room to pack up and change as well.

“Hey, you almost done yet?” Xanthe shouted from downstairs. She still sounded irritated from their conversation. 

“Yeah, just about, Hold on!” About five minutes later Nila had changed out of her clothes and was carrying a star shaped back pack. An uneasy frown on her face as she went to meet her three sisters, not giving Xanthe any eye contact. ‘S’bout time.” Xanthe grunted, getting up off the floor. She slung her school backpack _now filled with sleepover gear_ over her shoulder. 

“The queen herself, is finally ready, Taffy. we can go now.” 

said Xanthe.

“Humpmmh?” There was a sound of a fork scraping the last remnants of food from the plate and a sound of hurried slurping. “Mmhmm. Io'um coumin.” (I’m coming). There was a sound of a plate and fork hitting the bottom of the sink. 


	7. The Gem Glow Juvey; The Sleepover PT 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Courtney's sleepover.

"Y'all are pretty quiet back there." said Taffy looking at Xanthe, Seren and Nila from the rearview mirror. 

Seren looked at both an annoyed-looking Xanthe, then at an apologetic and regretful-looking Nila. When she took into account that no one was going to say anything, Seren decided to break the silence. "Hm, looks like the two drama queens are still upset over what kind of present Nila should've given Courtney instead." Seren laughed nervously. 

Nila and Xanthe looked at her in shock. 

"You two were looking for a present?" asked Taffy. 

Xanthe and Nila looked at each other. "Yeah/Yes, you see.." They said over each other. "I had texted Xanthe on what I should get Courtney. Since Seren was giving her a gift, I decided that I wanted to give her a gift too, but I couldn't really make up my mind. Long story short, Seren and I had agreed on two different things and we got in touch with Xanthe to be our tie breaker. Aaand, she chose the one that Seren liked and I guess I was a bit of a sore loser.." 

"There's no need to be a sore loser over that, Nila. And you definitely shouldn't let that ruin all the fun." said Taffy. Thankfully she didn't pry more into the topic. The three sighed in relief and both Xanthe and Nila was looking a bit more relaxed.

They were reaching the start of the beach and another five minutes later, Taffy stopped the car once she seen a tall and huge sign that was blinking the words SLEEP OVER in red. It arced over the beach. 

“This is definitely it.” Taffy said, taking in the sign and everything behind it. "Well isn't she... creative. She's really going all out tonight." She put the car in parked and turned around. "Alright kids, have fun and _no_ getting in trouble." She turned to Blanca in the passenger's seat. "Please see to it that they won't, okay?"

Blanca gave a stiff nod. 

“See ya in the morning, Taffy.” Seren hugged her from the back seat and climbed over Xanthe, her present hitting Xanthe in the face as she opened the door to exit the car. 

“Hey, what're you- Owch! Seren, you could’ve just waited!” She growled, holding her eye. She unbuckled her seatbelt and whispered under her breath. “I’m telling you.. that gem ain't right in the he-“ A closed door cut off her insult. 

Nila hugged Taffy. “Thanks again for letting me go to something that was so last minute. I truly appreciate it.” 

“Well, I figured I should cut you guys some slack, you know? All four of y'all of been on y'all good behavior, after all“ And she ruffled Nila's hair. 

Nila got out and closed the door behind the driver's side..

Taffy put her window down. “And be sure to call me when y'all get up. Even if you’re going to stay a bit later, I just want to know that everything went well tonight.” 

"Will do." said Nila and she jogged down the beach to catch up to Xanthe and Seren. 

Blanca was still in the car, playing with the upper strap of her seatbelt, not trying to look at Taffy. She smiled warmly. “You know, you don’t have to force yourself to go. I know how events like these aren’t really your thing. Nila would understand completely if you decided not to go.” 

“No, I can’t do that to her. Not only did I promise, but.. we’re supposed to be-“ _looking out for anything suspicious at this sleepover. The three of us aren’t here just for fun._ “hanging out with each other and having fun at the sleepover together.. It wouldn’t be the same if it were just the three of them.” Blanca sighed _Just tell her the truth. Tell her that there might be a corrupted gem and that Nila had agreed to help out. Tell her to call the police!_ and ignored that thought. She managed to turn her frown into a small smile and nodded to Taffy. "I think I'll be able to handle it." and she got out of the car. 

Nila and Xanthe caught up to Seren, bouncing with every step. “I can’t wait to check out the snack table.” She laughed cheekily." 

“Um, are you forgetting about our little mission?” asked Xanthe. “We’re not here to pig out.” 

“Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. You just didn’t let me finish. See I'm simply going to _scope out_ the snack table.” Then she said in a more deep and heroic voice and puffing her chest out. “For danger lurks it’s ugly head around everywhere.”

“Riiiiight.” Xanthe files her arms, unconvinced. 

“Speaking of which, I think I see those could-be evil snack tables amongst the group of people now.” She cleared her throat. “Ladies, if you excuse me.” And she curtsied and made a beeline to the table. 

Nila and Xanthe just stared at each other, not knowing what to say exactly or who was going to break the silence first. Nila eventually broke away from the stare. "I.. I'm sorry for what I said earlier on the phone. I know that it was just in your best interest.. And I know that you take it upon yourself to keep me safe. I just really wanted for this to not be a trap and I was just tired of hearing that it probably isn't. Still, I had no right to snap at you like that." She waited a bit before looking back up at Xanthe. 

Xanthe's face softened a bit. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again. "I guess there are times when I can go a bit too overboard though.. No, not 'I guess'.. There _are_ times when I can go overboard with my safety and my tactics. That's just how I can be during dire or potential dire situations. But I didn't mean to make you feel that way. You're just too good of a person and" Xanthe made a smug face. "I don't want to have to put the hurtin' on anyone who takes your kindness for granted." 

" 'The hurtin' '?" Nila chuckled. 

"Yeah! Where I show off some of these grappling moves from Jui-jitsu class. Yeah, that should get the job down." 

Nila laughed again. "Yeah, sure." Then she started taking in more of the beautiful and extravagant scenery of the sleepover. ”You know, Xanthe. I don’t think it would be a crime to just have a bit of fun as well.” Nila soothed 

“Wha? But scoping out places for potential danger _is_ my kind of fun.” 

“Well maybe dipping your feet in the water or squeezing sand through your toes could also be your idea of fun.” 

“Yeah, that’s more _your_ thing. I’m perfectly content with my militant-like approach, thank you very much..” 

“Mmm, suit yourself.” Then a thought came to her mind and she laughed to herself. “Just you wait, Xanthe, you’re going to end up being the first one to get swept off her feet.”

“What!” Xanthe voice cracked. 

The voice crack, Xanthe's sputtering and her dark yellow blush made Nila laugh even more. This made Xanthe even more flustered, sending more giggles out of Nila. 

Then a voice shouted from a few yards away, near the shoreline. “Yoo-hoo! Um, my fair blue gem! Over here!” 

The fits of laughter and sputtering eventually died down as they looked at the coastline to see Courtney and Miranda, both in their cotton pajamas. 

Xanthe stood up straight and proud, as if what had just happened a few seconds ago hadn’t happened. “Let the scoping commence.” She gave Nila a military nod. "I’ll be searching around the perimeter for the first 45 minutes before I start searching the ocean. I'll be bumping into you periodically to inform you of any information I may have gathered and you may do the same.” She gave another nod before walking away. 

Nila walked over to Courtney and Miranda and was treated with _la bise_ as what Courtney calls it, nearly startling Nila. “I’m so glad that you could make it! Oooooo, is that for me? What a totally and complete surprise!” She acted and perfected, eyeing the mysterious box and already grabbing for it. 

"Oh, this isn't mine." said Nila 

Miranda pulled Courtney's hands away, stopping her. “Uh, uh ,uuuuh. I'm sure that whatever Nila " She winked at Nila "picked out is quite the catch. But right now, how’s about we make an announcement, yes? Surely everyone is here by now and I think that it would be best to speak to your guests. Here. I’ll take this. And I’ll meet you at the dock in five.” And with that Miranda started to walk away from them. 

“Well, I guess she’s right. I absolutely can NOT let my fellow people waiting. Care to join us, Nila “

“Huh? What? Oh, no,no,no,no, no. No thanks..I, I rather just watch from the sidelines.” 

“And risk not getting any publicity?” She snorted. “Guess you’re the type to lay low. I can respect that. Well, au revoir. I’ll see you after the speech.” She gave her the la bise again and started walking to the dock. 

Nila stood there. Not exactly sure what to do. Then it dawned on her. Now that she was alone, without any of her sisters, she can hurry and nab the sign. _But how can I go to that other part of the beach without being seen?_ Then she looked at the water. _Light bulb._ If could just go in the water without being seen, she could easily swim down the length of the beach. She pulled her bag around bubbled it. She looked around a few more times and hoped that she didn't look over anyone before jumping into the water. She dove a good distance down, not wanting anyone to see her, then she started swimming parallel to the shore, looking up occasionally to see the reflection of the sky above and to look out for any divers nearby. Ten minutes of swimming and she seen the thick, magical moss covering the ocean floor. She knew she was close to the forbidden part of the beach. She resurfaced a couple minutes later and stared down from where she started swimming from. She was far away from the beachgoers. The slumber party sign being a blinking dot from afar. Standing a few yards in front of her stood the 'Do Not Cross' sign. She swam to the shore and ran up to the post. _And all you have to do is just... pluck it_ Miranda's voice echoing in her mind. "Yes... That's all I have to do." she whispered to herself.

She looked around again. Nobody in sight. She popped the blue bubble containing her bag and took a deep breath before pulling and turning and eventually plucking out the dry rotting sign. 

"Ew..." She looked at her bag, then back at the damp, rotting wood. "I hope this isn't a health risk..." She put the sign upside down, in her bag. The stem of it poking out. She bubbled the bag again and jumped back into the water. _That was pretty easy.. So far, so good._ She thought. _And now to find Miranda or Courtney._ . 

She resurfaced nearby the dock. Courtney was already on the dock rehearsing. _I guess she would have to get the sign later then... Perhaps I can give it to Miranda so she can put it with all of the other gifts._ She got out of the ocean and whisked the water away from her clothes and back into the ocean. She unbubbled the bag and placed it back on her back. She walked a few steps away from the shore and stopped, looking around for Miranda. 

~~~~~~~~~

There was a crackle as Xanthe turned her walkie on. "This is Roca Amarilla. Roca Amarilla to Pelo Pálido. Come in Pelo." 

A few moments later, there was another static crackle. "Pelo Pálido here. Copy." 

"What's your twenty?" 

"At the far northeast side of the dock. Copy" 

"Think you can get a read on any corrupted gem auras with any of your psychic powers?" 

"I'm unaware of how a _corrupted _gem aura looks, but I'll see if anything is out of the ordinary. "__

__  
._ _

A minute passed before Blanca spoke again. "I managed to do a full sweep of the area. Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary as far as auras are concerned. They all seemed normal to me. None of them were standing out." 

"As far 'as the auras are concerned'? What do you mean?" 

"Apart from the normal-looking auras, I did happen to pick up three gems deep in the trees by the end of the beach. Also please keep in mind that my power can _only_ detect gems and hybrids. If there are any humans who are a part of this, I am unable to detect them. 

"Copy that." 

"Oh! Lago Azul is by herself. I'll speak with her to see if she's found anything new. Do you know Nube Rosa's location?" 

Xanthe looked at the first spot where Seren could possibly be. _Yup. Still there._ Seren noticed her and gave her a wave. Xanthe ignore her, too focused on her surroundings. "Yes. By the table of meriendas. I'll do another perimeter sweep, starting with the patch of trees before talking to her." 

"Copy. An did you check the ocean yet?" 

"Negative. I wanted to do a few sweeps before heading there. I have a feeling-" 

There was static on the other end. "Roca Amarilla? Come in, Roca Amarilla." Another voice interrupted. 

"What the? Blake! How did you get our frequency!" 

..

"I know not of this Blake you speak of. This is Relámpago."

Xanthe groaned.. _Are we really doing this?_ "What do you want, twerp?" 

_  
_

A posh laugh coming from the boy on the other end. "Oh, is that how you talk to someone with valuable information?" 

"What kind of valuable information?" 

"Information on this sleepover, of course." 

"Sounds like there's going to be a cost to this." Blanca chimed in. 

"Oh! Pelo Pálido! Glad to hear your voice." There was a sound of leaves rustling. "And it's valuable information, Pelo. I shall want Roca's lightning strucked rock as payment for the tip." 

"What?! No way that's going to happen. And by the way, I struck that rock first and you know it!" 

"YOU. did. NOT!" 

"That's it. We don't need any of this. We're losing precious time. Pelo? Meet with Lago. I'll do my sweep. Copy?" 

"Hey, wait! But guys! THIS is valuable information!" 

"Copy." said Blanca, ignoring Blake's whining. >/p>

"Don't you two ignore me!" 

"Over and out." said Xanthe. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So, anything fishy so fa-“ 

“AHHH!!” Nila's scream cut Blanca off in mid sentence. Water from the ocean shot up and sprayed back down into the ocean. Nila swung around to face Blance. “Oh goodness, Blanca.” She started catching her breath. Then she remembered about the sign and flipped her hair over the stem of the sign, taking a mental note to scrub her hair vigorously when she gets home.

“Sorry, I ,uh.. thought you heard me. Anyway, I was just checking up on you to see if anything was out of the blue.” 

“Not.. really?” 

“You don’t seem so sure.” 

“I don’t know. I mean, Miranda seemed pretty quick to grab that box and she even said that I picked it out. And she gave me this wink. I don't know what it means and..” She shook her head. “Never mind, I may just be over reacting. All she did was simply take the box away from me as Courtney was trying to open it. That’s nothing to point fingers at. Really it isn’t. And she probably didn't want Courtney to know that it was her present.” 

__“Hmm.” Blanca made a face. "Do you know where she went?” They looked around. The beach area was light up colorfully from the gemtech stage lights _(since Earth stage lights weren’t nearly as bright and colorful. That and the fact that the Earth stage lights needed to be plugged in, unlike the gemtech ones)._ Groups of people were huddled in various spots; by the shoreline, underneath of a small cliff, by the dock, in the ocean, on the beach, flying in the sky and by the snack table with a delightfully eating at her heart’s content/ scoping diligently in the surrounding areas_ Seren._ No sign of Miranda and no sign of the ninja-like Xanthe either. 

“I, I don’t know, but she said something about Courtney having a speech first before looking at it." 

“A ‘speech’?” 

“こんにちは皆さん！(Konnichiwa minasan!), Bonjour la tous et gooooooood evening everyone!!!” a cheery voice boomed through a megaphone. “This is yours truly bringing in another amazing sleep over to you all again! I Hope that everything is going well with everyone! As you all should know from the itinerary, we should be wrapping up the meet and greet and should be beginning our make a fancy hairstyle so I hope that everyone has their hairstyle buddy! The one with the most votes gets to dine with me, Courtney Gripling For FIVE days in the cafeteria and” 

“What itinerary?” Blanca drowned out her speech.

“I don’t know! I wasn’t aware of anything like that!” 

They started to see pamphlets in people’s hands or pockets. “Were those pamphlets there the whole time! Uhg” She face palmed herself. “Come on, Blanca .perhaps one of these pamphlets can help us. Maybe we can figure out when the right time may be for the corrupted gem to get unleashed." 

~~~~~~~~~~

“Somewhere within the trees that laid scattered at the far end of the beach, two hybrids were plotting. 

“Remember, you owe me BIG time.” Said the voice. 

“Yes, yes. I know,” The raspy voice said impatiently. “Both Courtney and I are _very_ wealthy. You will get your lump sum. Don’t you worry about that. But of course, YOU must hold up to your end of the bargain first.” 

“Hey, I’m here aren’t I?” 

The hybrid gave a sinister and opened up the brown, medium-sized box. Two small, pale yellow capsules laid in it. 

“Oh.. I imagined like, something more sinister looking for me to take.. Why not just put them in an earring box and call it a day?” 

“Duh! I had to make it look like something more than just a piece of jewelry. Remember, this box was supposed to be for the sleepover, not just for Courtney, herself. And what kind of thing could be for the WHOLE sleepover that small? Putting it in a bigger, heavier box is way more convincing.” said the raspy voice. 

“Mm, I guess you have a point..” 

“So! Let’s continue, shall we?" The raspy-voiced hybrid thought she heard some rustling in the trees and looked up. She didn't see anything and turned back to the other hybrid. "After this, there is NO turning back. You take the pale yellow pill on the left- the story ends, you wake up in your bed.. _or_ the hospital" she shrugged "and believe what you want to believe. You take the pale yellow pill on the right- you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the corruption light goes. Remember: all I'm offering is the truth and fairness." 

“I pick the one on the left.” 

She made a buzzer sound. “Wrong answerrrrrr! You’ll be taking both!” She put the two pills in the palm of the hybrid's hand. “Wait, what?! Is that even SAFE? Wait, wait, wait, but I thought-“ 

She sighed deeply and pinched the top bridge of her nose. “Are we, are we really doing this now? Seriously? At this time!?” Her voice was raising with every sentence.” Look, the other person chickened out and you said that you would cover them! You said that you would do this, even with the possible side effects! You SIGNED the flippin' papers for crying out loud!!” 

“Yeah, but that was like, for one pill right? Not both! Just taking one pill was pretty bad enough and-” 

“Page three, section 2, paragraph 5, second to last sentence states that the person signing may be subjected to taking more than one pill. There were also plenty of asterisks at the bottom of those papers that stated the same exact thing. 

"I,.. well I did kinda skimmed through those pages. I mean, come on, they were SO lengthy. And who _really_ reads those terms and conditions anyway!” 

“As a lawyer in training, I do. Now, you’ve signed the papers, okay? Nothing but being a tad bit more volatile should happen. And nothing else _should_ go wrong.” She glared at her. “Now. Take it.” 

The hybrid sighed. "This better be a pretty huge lump sum." And she took the two pills. 

She smiled. A mischievous grin on her face.“This should he fun.” She began to cackle. “Well, you should be feeling the effects between 10-15 minutes.. And as that’s happening, I’ll call my.. Wait, what was that? Did you just see that?” Something yellowish had darted from one tree to the other. 

“See what?” 

She shushed the other hybrid. “I think someone’s watching us.” She turned her face to the direction of the yellow blur she had seen. “Who’s there! Come to spy on us, have you?” 

Silence. 

She grimaced. Flames formed around two clenched palms and she threw them at the two trees she had seen the blur dart between. The trees were disintegrated in seconds from the light blue flames. 

“I _would_ say you gave her a warm welcome, buuuut... fire is more on the hot side, so..” Seeing the other's 'no nonsense' face, the hybrid girl trailed off, fiddling with her fingers. 

Unnoticed behind a tree that stood a few feet from the nonexistent trees sat Xanthe, panting. She peered behind the tree, glaring at the two hybrids plotting. “I knew it.” She said harshly. 

“Come on, let’s go. We should be getting to the end of the best hair contest. You should start feeling the effects quite soon.” They left and Xanthe waited a bit before leaving. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Seren, you’ve been here this _whole_ time eating cookie cats!" Xanthe snapped, looking at Seren who had a still wrapped cookie cat in her hand. She was also sporting two puff balls on top of her head. "I'm still baffled as to why they brought them back after all these years.” 

“What! No I haven’t! I'll have you know that I did make my rounds about the beach! Having seen nothing out of the ordinary, I went back for another quick snack.” 

“Mmhmm.” 

“Really! I did do a bit of patrolling! I gave Courtney her scarf that I bought her, which she's wearing now. With that, she let me stay at her sleepover. I talked to Blanca twice, I tried to talk to Nila one time, but once I got out of the crowd, she was already gone. Then, I went over to the make-up cart to scope out some stuff AS well as do my toes." Seren showed her feet. "Then I ended up being a part of the hairstyle contest, as you can see.' She pointed at her hair. "and last time I did a patrol, I saw Blanca and Nila at a pamphlet stand, which was about, mmmm, fifteen minutes ago. And I literally JUST got back here. This was going to be the first cookie cat I was going to eat since coming back here." 

"Okay, so you actually did do a bit of monitoring-But never mind that now, that Miranda chick, who's a hybrid and some other unknown hybrid are on their way here now." 

"Miranda's a hybrid?!" 

" Yes. Now let's get a move on. We have to find Blanca and Nila." 

“And I was rooting for her too" Seren placed the cookie cat back in the gemtech fridge. "Well, what’re we waiting for?" 

"You can go look for the rest of the gang while I look for the two culprits." 

Seren nodded and Xanthe speed dashed through the crowd to the outer perimeter of the slumber party. The teenagers gawked as chatter about her being cool with super speed clattered like white noise amongst them. 

“Pffft.. super speed... like Blanca.“ She started to job within the interior of the slumber party, trying to find Blanca and Nila.. “Aww, so many cookie cats in my stomach.” She burped. 

.

She eventually found them. They were picking out their nail polish for the next contest; Who can make the cutest toenail designs? That contest was to start right after the announcement of the hair contest. 

“Nila, Blanca! Awesome, I finally found you two.” Seren panted, holding her stuffed belly. “She caught her breath and pulled them in, getting a very confused look from them and from the vendor who was in the middle of talking to them about which nail polish would look good on them. A nail polish bottle, still in her hand, in mid reach. “Look, Xanthe was right!” she whisper shouted. “It’s Miranda. And she's a hybrid!! And she and this other gem hybrid is behind a plan that may enfold any moment now. We’re not sure what they’re going to do, _exactly,_ but we must be vigilant.” 

“Really?! And a part of me _was_ rooting for her too..” Blanca hissed. 

“I know!! So was I!!” Seren threw her hands in the air. “But, we have our two leads. Now we just have to somehow find Xanthe or the Miranda and the hybrid.” 

"That'll be easy." said Blanca. "We can find her with this." She pulled out her walkie talkie. "This is Pelo Pálido. Come in Roca Amarilla. 

“Heeeeeeello everyone again! I would like to bring everyone up on stage so the judges can give their vote!" Everyone who participated started making their up the dock (or down the dock for those who were flying, levitating, floating or anywhere in between. 

~~~~~

The clapping and the cheering turned to white noise as Xanthe focused more on finding the two subjects. She did one of her signature high jumps and landed on a cliff that stretched a bit over the water. She crouched down, eyeing the area. _Still nothing out of the ordinary._ The tall, thick bushes, ominously still. She stood up, peering over the edge, looking at the surface of the water. _Calm._

“Loooooooooooks like we have ourselves a winner folks!!” Cheers and whistles resonated until a loud, deafening growl was heard above them... and behind Xanthe.

"This is Pelo Pálido. Come in Roca Amarilla." 

Ignoring the transmission, Xanthe whipped around, trying to see passed the thick brambles of bushes. _Nothing_. 

"Come in Roca Amarilla."

Then, as if phasing into the real world, the chameleon-like hybrid went back to its original orange color and crashed into Xanthe, knocking her off the cliff. People were screaming as Xanthe came closer to the ground. She landed on her feet and one of her hands. The walkie still strapped to her waist. She let out a breathe “Well that was a cheap shot.”

The onlookers just watched on as Xanthe pat the sand off of her clothes. “What, you act as though, certain gems can't land from that kind of height.” She said defensively to the staring eyes. Another roar and the hybrid jump off the cliff towards Xanthe. She had her hands up, ready to punt the weird acting gem. She started charging Towards Xanthe, hands out in attack mode. Claws forming from her nails. And just as Xanthe and the hybrid was about to make impact, a huge white ball of energy blasted the hybrid a few feet away. She could tell from the color and the size of the blast that it was .. "Blanca!" shouted Xanthe. Blanca, Nila and Seren were running from out of the crowd. “That’s her! That’s the hybrid!” Xanthe hissed. 

“But where’s Miranda?” Nila asked in a panic. 

"I don’t know! But right now we have to take care of this situation right here." 

The hybrid got up. Something was happening. It looked like she was shape shifting. Muscles started forming over one another as horns started protruding from arms and legs. Green and yellow blotches started to mar her skin. Tamed hair ruffling up into a wild mane. The hybrid walked slowly, still transforming steadily, in front of them. Then, her gray, orange eyes become a solid yellow. She was quiet, staring at the four sisters. The crowd behind them, also quiet. Then... a huge roar left the hybrid's mouth as she started charging towards Xanthe. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope that y'all are liking the story so far. Can't wait to finally finish this episode and start off fresh with a new one. It may be a few days to a week until I post the last two chapters. *shrugs*


	8. The Gem Glow Juvey; The Sleepover PT 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here are the two final chapters of this episode! :D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea of Xanthe having a sword as her weapon came from an absolutely amaaaaaazing Connie Swap fanfict. If you haven't read it yet, I DEFINITELY recommend. Here's a copy and pasted synopsis:   
> Connie Swap is an ongoing fanfic with Connie as the gem hybrid trying to live up to the expectations put on her by her guardians (Peridot, Lapis, and Jasper), her dad (Doug), and the long shadow cast by her mom (Citrine). Connie's adventure begins with Episode 1: Gem Glow and it quickly diverges from there.  
> https://archiveofourown.org/series/630527 
> 
>  
> 
> And Blanca and Nila didn't summon their weapons becaaaaauuuuse... Well, I'mma be real witchu.. 'cause I couldn't think of neh weapon forreal forreal *shrugs* ..lol, no but seriously, I'm still trying to figure out which weapon they could have. I'm thinking about Nila having some type of water related weapon or a defense weapon, but I'm still not sure though.. And Blanca, maaaane, I want hers to be something really cool/OP/anime-like or mysterious.. But yeah, perhaps in time I'll think of something.. And suggestions are always welcomed =)

“Yes! Please hurry! Everyone is in danger!” She hung up and put the phone in her pajama pants pocket. A sinister, sly smile on her lips. 

“Miranda! What are you doing way over there?” Courtney shouted. 

“What?” She turned around. “Oh! There you are, Courtney. What’s up?” 

“Don’t ‘what’s up' me. Where were you? You weren’t there in five minutes to meet me like you said. You weren't there _while_ I was giving my speech and you weren't even there afterwards!“ 

“Oh, Courtneeeeey. I had to do something _really_ important and well, I kinda lost track of time back there. ” 

“I honestly don’t know WHAT could've been more important than accompanying ME, but whatever. Now isn't the time to interrogate.. NOW we have something else on our hands!” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Some random hybrid just came out of nowhere, turned into this, this BEAST and is now attacking people!” 

“What!" 

Miranda acted.

“First she started attacking that yellow gem that you were in an altercation with.” Miranda held in a smile. “and now she’s just, going after everyone!!" She glared at Miranda. ' And I see YOU here all by yourself like some lone wolf!” 

She shape shifted her nose into a snoot and shape shifted her irises and ears to resemble that of a wolf. Four canines protruding from her mouth. “Oh, but I am, my dear Courtney” She howled and couldn’t take herself seriously, the howl turning into a snort filled laughter. 

“Come on, I’m serious. I don’t want you getting hurt. I don’t want ANYONE getting hurt. Especially not during anyone of MY events! That’s like, rule number 15 in the popular handbook! Rule number 27 in _mine_! And that is to not have anybody, injured, cracked or poofed at your held events! And I dare not speak of the ..other thing that can happen..." 

Miranda shape shifted back. “Okay, okay. Relax. Come on.” They began to run back to the commotion. 

“I’m not sure how long those girls can last up against that monster. Nila, her sister and two other gems were trying to fight her off.. And they're strong. Like, _REALLY_ strong. At least the three of them are..Especially that pale looking one. Still, it's probably only a matter of time before they start getting tired. We need to find a way to contain that mangy thing." 

"And how are we going to do that exactly?..." 

A loud roar interrupted their conversation and a huge chunk of rock from the cliff came hurdling at them. Courtney quickly summoned her fan as Miranda held her fists up, flames already surrounding them and just as she was about to hurl some fireballs at tit, Courtney quickly threw her fan, cutting the thick rock like butter, before winking out. The two halves of the rock, flying to either side of them. 

Flames dissolved from Miranda's hands. "I could've had that, you know." 

"Well you have to be a bit quicker than that." she teased, earning a glare and a snarl from Miranda. The memory of Xanthe saying how she was too quick for Miranda, resurfacing. 

Another roar and they looked to the direction to see the crowd engulfed in a white, see-through bubble, the monster diving towards them, only to crash hard into the force field. The monster shook her head, snarling, then darted at the field again, scratching at it. The crowd screamed from behind the enclosure. 

Xanthe side-kicked the gem in the face, but the gem turned around and smacked her into the side of the cliff with its tail. A pincer at the top of it.”

”Xanthe, are you okay?!” Seren ran to Xanthe as she slowly got up, holding her stomach. “Never better.” She coughed out. 

“Look out!” Shouted Nila.

The corrupted gem took a dive towards them. Seren held up her hand in front of them, trying to summon her shield. That one stray thought of how different the other shield look, still in her mind. Xanthe summoned her electricity. Her stance locked and ready to lounge. The gem burrowed down into the sand. Seren looked at her wrist, looking a bit confused. “Why didn’t it work that time?” 

Nila ran towards her two sisters, with Blanca in tow. “Now where did it go?” Blanca started looking around, eyeing the ground as it rumbled from underneath them. 

The hybrid jumped up and out of the sand... And right inside of the bubble with everyone else. The crowd screamed and started running around in the little space they had, shoving and knocking each other over.

”It’s inside the bubble with them!” shouted Seren. Blanca withdrew her bubble and everyone started scattering about. “Wait! I can just put y’all in a full bubble this time! She won’t be able to get y’all!” The crowd ignored her, running around. Those with levitating powers and wings flew away and those with high jumps jumped away from the scene. The hybrid continued to chase after the crowd. Nila summoned two energy beams as Blanca and Xanthe ran towards the monster. 

The monster managed to tackle one girl, sending her into the air, before the energy blasts hit the monster's face. The three sisters looked overhead as girl soared over them. “I got her!” shouted Blanca.

”No, I got her! I got her!” Seren said from behind them, running a few feet back. The girl screamed, crashing into Seren hard and sliding them across the sand. She winced in pain, barely holding onto the girl. “Are you okay?”

The girl gave a sigh of relief. “I am now.” She got up off Seren, then helped her up to her feet.

The monster started to climb up the side of the cliff. Bits of rocks were falling down with her every step.

”Quick! It’s going up the hill!” shouted Blanca. She looked to Seren. The girl that she just saved still close beside her. “Seren, I think it would be best for you to go run for cover like everyone else.” She turned back around and followed the monster up, with three high jumps. Xanthe and Nila followed behind her. 

”No way! I have powers too!” she shouted. “I just have to concentrate more.” She whispered to herself. “I..Just..Have to.. concentrate..more..” she grunted, her eyes closed. 

”Umm..maybe I should run for cover too...” the girl said and ran down towards the makeup truck and hid with a few other girls.

Xanthe did a spin kick, hitting the hybrid's shoulder. And Blanca blasted her with a fire ball, the monster jumped back and ran behind a tree, peering at them. The three sisters braced themselves. The monster coiled back, as if to pounce and it darted towards them at full speed. The three of them jumped up and Xanthe quickly summoned her sword and held it down. The blade cutting the corrupted hybrid's back in mid jump, as she glided passed the cliff. A high-pitched screech as she crashed back into the sand.

They jumped back down, Xanthe, still clutching onto her sword. The monster squirmed in pain, kicking up sand as it squirmed and thrashed about. 

The flailing stopped a few moments later and Blanca waved her hand and the haze and debris from the sand settled back down. 

”What in the world just happened?! Seren was running towards them.

“I think we just found it’s weakness.” said Nila. “Electricity.” 

The hybrid turned around, snarling at them. She lunged her neck back and spat out acid straight at them. Blanca engulfed the four of them in a bubble and the green acid burned off its surface. 

“So she can spit acid too?!” asked Seren. 

”Just great...” Mumbled Xanthe.

.

....

”Oh, how gross, Miranda. That thing can spit out acid too!.. I thought it was gross enough with that.. pincer tail!” Courtney hovered, with her wind powers, looking over the food truck. She looked back down at Miranda. “I am SO glad that we are all the way over here and NOT all the way over there with them.”

”Courtney, behind you!” Miranda warned. Courtney turned around to see a green glob of acid heading towards her. Courtney summoned her fan as Miranda pushed her out of the way, the acid, barely missing them and burning the sand where it landed. “You should be a bit quicker.” Miranda mocked.

Courtney was about to say something, but something caught her eye and she turned around and gasped. Now away from the food truck, from Miranda pushing her, they had been spotted by the monster. The four sisters, still engulfed in the bubble. The hybrid had left them be and was running towards the two targets. Miranda jumped out from behind the truck, her fists already sounded by flames and Courtney summoned and held her fan in front of her. A terrified look plastered on Courtney’s face. “That monster is coming right at us!! How can you be so calm right now!?" 

"Years and years of practice at the academy." said Miranda, her eyes glaring straight at the hybrid charging right at them. 

Blanca's bubble dissolved and they ran after the hybrid.. Xanthe threw her sword, the sword shocking the hybrid's legs before winking out. She fell, electricity still coursing throughout her body. The four sisters ran past the hybrid and stood in between her and Courtney and Miranda. 

"We REALLY need to keep her far away from everyone..Everyone is in the way." said Xanthe. 

"Well it's not like we can help it." said Miranda, fists still engulfed in flames. 

"Maybe I can fling it across the beach." Nila's hair swayed a bit with her power, letting Miranda get a nice look at the bottom of the board wedged in her backpack. Nila used her hydro kinesis to rope the water around the hybrid's torso and flung the monster away from the crowd. 

"Come on, let's go!" shouted Xanthe. She, Nila and Blanca started running towards the hybrid. Seren stayed behind, trying to summon her shield. 

.

"Yup, so she does have water powers." said Courtney. "Nice." 

Seren stood still, trying to figure out how to form her shield. _Maybe I don't need any practice. Besides, all that practice stuff is no fun. Whenever some gems need to summon their weapons, it just happens and they don't even try at all.. So maybe I'm like that too._ She took a huge step forward and thrust her arms out. "Ha! " _nothing._ She groaned. 

"What was that all about?" asked Courtney.

"Huh? Oh, I'm trying to summon my shield again. But it's not working.." 

"Awweeee, how cuuute." she cooed. "And you'll get it in time. I'm sure you will." 

Seren smiled at her and started running back to the fight. 

"You're babying her, Courtney." growled Miranda. 

.

Nila broke away from the group and jumped into the water, as Xanthe and Blanca kept their pace down the beach. The hybrid got up and locked her eyes on Nila, who was trying to make a wave. She froze in fear, the huge tide of water, falling back down as the hybrid ran passed Xanthe and Blanca and right towards her. 

"It's going after Nila now!" Xanthe shouted. The two changed direction, running towards the shoreline. 

Nila waved her hand, a water wall forming in front of her as she tried to turn it into ice. The hybrid getting closer to her. The water was slowly forming into slush and Blanca jumped down in front of her and quickly turned it into ice. The hybrid stopped a few feet away and lounged her head back. Throwing her head forward, she started spitting acid. Xanthe jumped on the hybrid's head, causing the monster to spray a bit of the sand, before going back to the ice. Xanthe landed behind the block of ice. "We could really use Seren's shield right about now." she said. "With her shield, we would be able to actually move about, versus staying stationary with fields or covers like these." 

"That has came to my mind too." said Blanca. "But Seren hasn't been able to form her shield and there's nothing we can do about that. She has to learn how to summon her shield herself. But until then, we're going to have to take this hybrid down ourselves." 

The acid started to break down the crystal-like ice. "Oh no.." said Nila. Blanca formed a bubble around them and the ice shattered in front of them, the acid now hitting the bubble. 

"Hey!" Seren shouted as she threw a hunk of rock at the hybrid's face. She turned around to glare at Seren.

Seren planted her feet in a stance. "Leave my sisters alone!" 

_Okay, so_ not _trying didn't work.. Now I'm just going to use a different method._ Seren took a deep breath, trying to push that nagging thought of why that other shield looked different in the back of her mind and instead imagined herself being in a meadow filled with blossoming flowers. Petals, flowing in the breeze, some of them falling into the flowerbed. "Pay attention to these petals, Seren." she whispered to herself. 

. 

Courtney gasped. "So all FOUR of them are sisters!" 

Miranda didn't answer her. _And of course that pasty one is also their sister.. She will definitely be harder to take down_ she thought. 

.

The hybrid started to go after Seren. 

Blanca's bubble dematerialized. "No!" they shouted in unison. 

Seren continued to whisper to herself. "The petal's dance SEEMS improvised, but it is being calculated in real time, based on the physical properties of this planet." She widened her stance. "With hard work and dedication, you can master the magical properties of your gem and perform your own dance!" Seren took another deep breath. "Like so..." She grunted. "Shield powers, activate!!" _nothing_

The monster comes closer.

Seren tries to focus on her shield more, tensing up her arm. 

The monster comes closer. 

Her concentration falters as the corrupted hybrid starts to close the space between them. 

_Okay, so there's one more method that I can try._ The nagging thought of _that_ shield successfully buried somewhere in the back of her mind. _Perhaps I can meet in the middle._ She thought. _Work really hard AND_ not _try at the same time! Wait! I got it!_ Seren locked eyes onto the hybrid, being a bit more confident now. _Ooooor, I can link my mind with aaaall existing matter, channeling the collective power of the universe through my gem!! Which results in!!..._ Seren lounged her body forward. _Nothing._

"Ahh! Of COURSE that didn't work. It's impossible to link my mind with ALL existing matter and power." berated herself with a facepalm.

The hybrid comes closer, acid leaking from her mouth. She stopped in front of Seren and roared. The monster spat out some acid and Seren jumped out the way, just in time. The hybrid continued to spit out acid, the substance burning everything in its path. 

The three sisters were right behind the gem. "Seren!" Blanca shouted. The monster's pincer darted towards her and she grabbed a hold of it. She summoned flames to her hands and started burning the hybrid's tail. With a screech, it let go of Blanca and instead goes for Nila, lifting her up by the torso and throwing her into Xanthe, Xanthe, barely keeping her ground as she caught her. The monster pulled her neck back again and Blanca made another bubble shield to block the acid.

Seren got up and looked behind her, looking at all of the damage from the acid. She gasped once she seen her book bag. She ran towards it. "No! Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no!" 

The bag was destroyed. The acid had melted nearly all of it. Only one strap, a handful of tethered mesh and the smell of burnt mesh was left.

"I had sooo much stuff in there for tonight." She knelt down, grabbing the burnt materials, the materials sliding through her fingers. "I had soooo many fun games that I wanted everyone to play!! And now everything is.. ruined.." She got up, fist clenched. "YOU.. have crossed the line!!" The hybrid was still spitting acid at the bubble. 

Seren looked at the gemtech light and had an idea. _The electricity._

Seren picked up a nearby rock and ran past the crowd still hiding behind various vehicles and objects and straight for the gemtech light. She started climbing, inching towards the top of the light pole. 

"Huh, what is she doing?" Courtney asked Miranda, nonchalantly.

Once Seren finally got to the top, she started to hit the top of the structure, with a sharp piece of rock. The structure, slowly bending from the pole. 

"Hey! What is she doing?!" she repeated, in a different tone. "Miranda, she's breaking my equipment!!"

Miranda shrugged. "You can just get another one."

"Well, yes.. But that's beside the point!! She's breaking my things!!"

.

Seren gave the structure a few more hits, before the structure and light fixtures hit the ground. The light, still in the fixtures. She slid down and picked up the fixture by the structure and started running back to the monster. "I only have one shot." She said to herself. She ran a few more feet up for better accuracy. The gem hybrid was now hitting the bubble with its tail.

Seren began to spin, gaining a bit of momentum. A few more twirls and she threw the light fixtures at the back of the hybrid's head. She screamed, as the electricity zapped through her body once again. 

"Yes!" Exclaimed Xanthe. 

"Alright. Now's our chance." said Blanca. 

Blanca withdrew her bubble.

The hybrid was still being shocked.

"Let's do this." said Blanca. Nila and Xanthe nodded and the three of them started running towards the hybrid. Blanca with flames up to her elbows, Nila forming her energy orbs on both hands and Xanthe with electricity crackling around her whole body. They made contact with the hybrid at the same time and a huge explosion enveloped a huge part of the beach.

.  
.

"OMGee, Miranda!! Did you see that?!" asked Courtney, shaking her. 

Miranda was not amused. "Yes, Courtney. I saw." 

"Do you think they're okay? I _would_ go check, but.. _I_ wouldn't want to be caught in any future crossfire.. I have to think about myself too, ya'know."

.

Dust and debris shrouded the air. Blanca waved her hand, and the sand and debris fell back down into the sand.

The gem lay unconscious on her side. Blanca used her power from before to have a look at how a corrupted gem's aura looked. _Interesting.._ she thought to herself.

"We did it." said Xanthe. 

The crowd started to come out of their hiding spots.

"And we couldn't had done it without Seren, who didn't even _need_ her power." Nila smiled at Seren who gave a sheepish grin. 

The sweet moment was cut short by police sirens.

"Ah, so someone did call the police. What a relief." said Blanca, her focus now back to the world. 

Four cop cars, two ambulances and a fire truck drove into the sand and stopped a few feet away from the unconscious hybrid and the sisters.

Two cops came out of the first car. One walked towards the crowd and the one that was the driver started walking towards the sisters. One cop came out of the second car and joined the first one with the crowd. Two cops came out of the third one to check on the hybrid. And two cops came out of the fourth one and started walking around the area. One of them had a camera, taking photos of the scene and the other one had police tape in her hands. The paramedics in the first ambulance went to the crowd and the paramedics in the second ambulance went to the hybrid. Three firefighters came out. Two of them went to the policemen with the police tape and the other went to the corrupted hybrid.

"That's a lot of police officers..." whispered Nila to Blanca.

"And one of them just so happens to be walking towards us." Blanca whispered back.


	9. The Gem Glow Juvey; The Sleepover PT 4

The cop stopped a couple of feet in front of them. "We got a call about someone unleashing a corrupted gem in this area." He began. "And I'm sure you all know the rules and regulations on harboring corrupted gems as well as making corruption to put on gems and hybrids alike."

They couldn't help but fidget under the officer's stare, especially Nila. But they all stayed silent. Not sure if they had the okay to speak yet, as well as not entirely what to say exactly.

"Now. Fortunately, a bystander was able to find out who the culprit was." He pulled out the handcuffs and Nila found herself holding her breath. Her eyes, going wide, as a wall of guilt hit her like a ton of bricks. The cop noticed her reaction. 

"Nila Ishi." He started.

The crowd whispered and gossiped amongst each other.

Her sisters turned to her, then back at the policeman. Shock and fear on their faces. "You think that this was her doing?" Xanthe broke the silence.

"Ma'am." The cop said calmly and sternly. 

"She did not do this." Xanthe was trying to not raise her voice. Fear creeping up into her voice.

The cop raised his hand up to quiet Xanthe. "We got a call at twenty one hours and forty three minutes about a Nila Ishi, with a full description, who smuggled corruption light to a sleepover, attacking an innocent bystander."

"Officer! I didn't! I would never do anything like that!" Nila blurted out.

"She's been framed." said Xanthe.

"And nothing good comes with framing an attempted demise." Seren added.

"With all of this commotion, I take it that y'all are a part of this as well."

"What?! Wait, you can't possibly.. But where's your proof?" Xanthe asked. "Just one call giving her description and her name can't suffice."

"She is still a suspect and should be treated accordingly. And as I stated earlier, there is a high possibility that you three were in on it as well." 

"They weren't! WE weren't. This was all a setup! I wouldn't do this!" Nila started tearing up. There was a slight tinge of coolness to the air and the people in the area couldn't help but feel just a very slight hint of something.. worry? Sadness?..Blanca was unaffected.

"Oh no." whispered Seren. The three of them now looking at Nila.

"Nila, please calm down. This is all just a misunderstanding. Everything's going to be okay." Blanca tried to soothe her. It worked a little. She turned to the cop. "Officer, we have no clue as to how this happened, but I can assure you that we are NOT the culprits.

The cop seemed to waver a bit and this calmed Nila more. The air felt warmer and that random feeling of sorrow disappeared from everyone's mind.

The cop was about to say something, but the cop with the camera walked over, interrupting him. "Sir, we've came across a brown box in the woods and tested it." 

Nila's stomach dropped. _It can't be the same box that I got for Miranda.. What if my sister's were right? What if this was all a big setup by her?_

"Did the results come back yet?" 

"Corruption light." she confirmed. "I've talked with the other two officers who spoke to the group of teens. They witnessed that very box with the prime suspect." she turned to Nila. 

The cop who was talking to them before turned to Nila as well.

 _Should I tell on Miranda? How would she act if I were to tell on her.. How would everyone else act?...My reputation is on the line.. But I really had no idea about any of this.._

"Miss Nila Ishi. I am going to have to-" 

"It was Miranda!" she blurted out.

Everyone was quiet and she could feel the teens' judgment on her giving Miranda to the cops and so easily at that.

The cop tried to hide his face of shock. He coughed into his elbow. "You want to run that by me again?" he sneered.

"I, uh." She stammered. "I got the box.. for Miranda. I thought that it was her present. She said she couldn't make it.. and for me to pick it up.. I honestly had nothing to do with it." 

The cop looked like he was about to turn his head towards the crowd, but stopped himself, though his eyes still darted towards them.

"I'll have another chat with Miranda." said the cop with the camera. She took another look at the sisters before walking off and towards the crowd, passing a stretcher that now had the hybrid in it. 

The main cop sighed. "And we'll have to wait until the hybrid wakes up until we can hear her side of the story." he said to them, airily. "But you four aren't off the hook, JUST yet. Following proper Beach City protocol, I'll need you four to stand along the cop cars." The four of them grimaced and trudged over towards the first cop car. Eyes staring right at them.

"How embarrassing." whined Blanca. "Everyone's watching and I bet they all think that we're criminals now."

Xanthe growled at that.

The four of them waited. Blanca, still looking embarrassed, looking down and away from the crowds, Nila looking very guilty, Xanthe looking agitated and Seren looking like a lost puppy dog. A puppy dog who also ate too many sweets.

"Are you okay, Seren?" Nila was trying to calm herself down, trying not to worry about the situation they were in and trying to focus more on worrying about everyone else.

Seren was holding her stomach. "Yeah, I'm.. okay. For the most part.. But worry on top of sweets is not a good combination." She burped and swallowed.

Xanthe twisted up her face. "Please tell me you're not going to toss it.." 

The camera cop came by again, to meet with the first officer, but this time without her camera. She was holding some materials in one hand, and in her other, holding Miranda's arm. Her hands behind her back, but not yet in handcuffs. A scowl on her face.

"Care to share with them what you told me?" asked the officer. Her grip, unmoving from Miranda's arm.

Miranda took a few moments before speaking. "I did not send her to get the package."

"What!!" Three of them shouted. Seren looked appalled, but didn't say anything. Her hand, still on her stomach.

The main cop raised his hand, to shush them. "Let her finish."

"I did NOT send her to get any package. She brought the package with her herself. You want to see the present I gave Courtney as well as the present I got for the sleepover? It's still on the table along with all of the other gifts." 

The two cops looked back at the sisters. "Now. Who am I to believe? We have two different stories." said the camera cop. 

Then Nila remembered. "Check my phone!" Miranda didn't even flinch to that. "It's in my pocket. She sent me the details."

The first cop had ordered Nila to put the phone on the ground, slowly and raise her arms up. She backed away until her back hit the cop car behind them. He picked up the phone, flipped it open and pressed the button to turn it on. Nothing happened. "It's dead." He took a portable multi charger and used the one for Nila's phone. Nothing happened. "This phone, is not working." he said coarsely. 

Then Nila remembered something else.. "It must've gotten messed up when I jumped into the water, when the hybrid was attacking us."

"Hmm, what a coincidence." The two officers turned to Miranda. "Now let's check your phone." Just like Nila, Miranda had to undergo the same protocol with her phone, except she had to hold the phone up, showing the cop her screen as she unlocked it, before placing the phone on the sand. The first cop picked up her phone and searched through it thoroughly. No messages on the receiving end or in the outbox, no calls and no contact profile. Nothing. 

"Of course she could've just erased everything." Xanthe grumbled.

"Keep talking out of line." the first cop warned.

"Xanthe, mind your tongue." Blanca hissed.

The first cop placed the phones in two separate sealed bags before tucking them away inside a compartment in his utility belt. 

Nila was about to ask a question, but stopped herself. She raised her hand, then asked "Can I give you the address of the building? I still remember it." 

Nila gave the address to the first cop, the cop, writing it down in his notepad he had pulled from his belt. 

He put the pad in his pocket and straighten his hat.

"We're also dusting for fingerprints." The camera cop eyed all four of them. "Only ONE set of fingerprints were found. She's been fingerprinted." She gestured at Miranda. "And we'll have to fingerprint the four of you as well."

"But don't we need like.. some kind of parental or guardian consent or something?" asked Xanthe 

"Not for gems OR for hybrids." she gave a dark chuckle. "

"Also, this is your final warning." said the first cop.

"Xanthe, you're going to end up getting in big trouble." Blanca warned her.

.

Still holding onto Miranda's arm, the camera cop held out the supplies for the first cop to open and set up. He used the ink to take their fingerprints. First Seren, who had to unclench her hands from her stomach to do her fingerprints, then Xanthe, then Nila and then Blanca. Miranda, her hands still behind her back, right in front of them. Her eyes never left Nila.

The first cop was about to turn back to hand in the copy of the fingerprints until Miranda spoke up, eyes, still piercing through Nila. "Mister officer." The cop turned to her. "Perhaps you should check Nila's backpack as well. Everyone else took their bags off, but she was the _only_. _one._ who kept her bag on the WHOLE night."

Nila's eyes went wide. Her jaw nearly dropped a bit in surprise, but she quickly shut it.

"Ma'am, please leave the police duties to us." He paused. "And we were actually getting to that." He called on his walkie for another cop to come search Nila's bag and he didn't leave, until the cop arrived.

Nila hesitated before giving the cop her bag, making her look even more guilty. She took the bag from her back and immediately, the cop spotted the piece of wood sticking out of it. He took the bag and walked a few feet away from them. With specialized gloves and careful precision, he opened the bag and took out the obvious first. He looked at it, stone faced. He placed the board on the ground before looking through the bag again. A few minutes of searching through clothes and toiletries and miscellaneous items, he zipped the bag up. He left the bag on the ground and picked the sign up. "This is the 'Do not cross' sign." he stated the obvious. "The sign that nobody is to ever touch. This sign was right by the forbidden area of the beach." He took a few steps towards Nila. "What is this doing in your bag, Miss Ishi?" 

Blanca and Xanthe looked at Blanca. Shock, hurt and confusion filled their faces. This was the one thing she didn't tell them. Miranda had a smug look on her face.

Nila finally made eye contact with Miranda briefly, before looking away again. "I got that as a gift for Courtney." she whispered, barely audible. "She gave me an idea of stealing a sign.. and I did." 

"Who?" interrogated the cop.  
"Miranda.." she said even softer.

"Nila.. You didn't.." said Blanca.

"Though Miranda was the one who told me about the sign, still, I was the one who acted on it." she told on herself.

Miranda was now sporting a different look on her face after hearing her "I'm guilty" speech. Something of realization or an "I can't believe it, maybe I am wrong about her" face, but that quickly vanished, her expression hard and unyielding.

The three cops exchanged glances and the searcher cop nodded, pulling handcuffs from his belt.

.

..

"No way! Is Nila going to jail?!" Courtney jumped up from a park bench, not too far from the scene. With one of the ambulances gone, it was easier to see what was going on from the sidelines. The officer clamped the handcuffs onto Nila's wrists. 

..

"No!" shouted Nila. "I, I can't go to jail!" She started crying and a wave of sadness washed over every gem and hybrid, in the area except for Blanca. The three officers and four human teens were spared, though the sudden huge drop in temperature effected them, and the hybrids as well.

Gems and hybrids fell to their knees and the camera cop had to hold up Miranda. Her arm, on her torso. Xanthe, was the least affected. Tears forming at the corners of her eyes. One teardrop managed to slide down her cheek. "Nila, you have to calm down."

"But I can't go to jail!" She continued to sob. "I'm so sorry!" she apologized.

 _What kind of power is this?_ Miranda wondered.. She looked up at the babbling gem in front of her, through her blurry eyes.

"She was trying to attack us, but we're unaffected by it!" said the camera cop.

"That's attempted assault!" said the first cop.

"I'm not trying to do it." sobbed Nila. "I can't help it."

"She's not compliant!" shouted the main officer, ignoring what Nila said. He started to reach for his gem dystabalizer. 

"Don't hurt her!" said Blanca. "She's not trying to assault you. This is just what happens when she cries and you're just going to make it worse." She rubbed Nila's back.

The searcher cop turned to Nila "Miss. Ishi. I wasn't going to take you to jail."

"You're just saying that to get me to stop." She clenched her handcuffed hands.

" I hadn't explained the process. With you stealing the sign, you're looking at a minimum sentence of probation or community service." he didn't dare bring up the _possible_ jail time if the fingerprints come back with her prints. "And a possible grounding from your guardian. You're not going to-" 

"Will this go on her permanent record!" asked Blanca 

Nila gasped. "Oh no! How could I forget about Taffy and Sterling?! I lied, I stole.. Oh, I'm SO going to get it big time." she started crying more. The temperature decreased more and they could see their breath.

"Nice going." Xanthe said to the cop. She swiped a tear that was about to fall.

The searcher cop genuinely looked sad.

Seren clenched her stomach harder. Nila's aura making her stomachache worse as her sadness engulfed her mind. Now Nila's sorrow, on top of Seren's worry _on_ top of all of those sweets churned her stomach even more. 

"Perhaps she won't be as mad." Blanca said, still rubbing her back.

"How could she not be? ALL of this was a huge mistake." 

"You just fell under her trap." Blanca didn't even bother to look at Miranda when she acknowledged her. 

"But Blanca! The lies and the deception!! And I'm a thief!" 

Well, she wasn't wrong; nevertheless, Blanca couldn't just outright say she was. Well, she _could_ , but that definitely wouldn't work out for the better and she had to calm her down somehow. She sighed. " All of this _looks_ bad now, but..." she tried to think of something. "All... of this _has_ been one huge setup.. And both Taffy AND Sterling are forgiving and understanding people. I'm sure that they would understand once you explain to them what happened."

Nila was calming down a bit. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "I hope you're right." she sniffed.

The temperature started to warm up as the aura seeped away, the more Nila continued to calm down. Everyone started to get back up, wiping their eyes.

"Miss Ishi." said the searcher cop. “I'm going to take the four of you home. They should be working on those community service papers. And we'll send out a warrant to search the area of the address that you provided and the fingerprints shouldn't take longer than a couple of days." 

Then an important detail came to Blanca's mind and she nearly berated herself for not realizing this sooner. The _three_ auras that she saw in the woods! "Officer.. I believe we have a culprit or one more eye witness. We may be able to contact him through walkie."

The three officers thought about it before letting her proceed.

Blanca turned on the walkie. "Relámpago, copy?"

Nobody answered.

" Relámpago, copy!"

Static... then a few moments later. "Ah, what an unlikely surprise. Look who decided to come back." 

Blanca ignored Blake's little taunt. "I know you were over by the woods." 

Silence.

"What did you see? You said that you had some valuable information."

"Indeed I do. And I've EVEN taken the liberty to snap a few photos of the REAL culprit." he seemed very proud of himself. 

Miranda stared at the walkie in Blanca's hand. One would've assumed that she had heat vision and was trying to zap the radio to melted goop. 

The officers were listening closely.

"We need those pictures." Blanca stated plainly.

Silence. Even though they couldn't see him, Blanca and Xanthe could practically sense him smiling, with that smug look on his face that he always seemed to have.

He was waiting for them to answer. A question that he didn't have to repeat.

"You want that rock?" Xanthe sighed ".. I'll give you it. Just give us the photos."

A smug laugh. "I had a feeling that something like this was going to happen and that you would eventually come crawling back to me.. And I'm not even a Sapphire!" He laughed again. "Alright. I've placed the photos near the first set of bushes on top of the hill." 

The first cop gestured upwards at the hill to three cops. Using the latter from the ambulance, they started making their way up the hill.

There was the sound of running and leaves being crushed under foot, then silence.. A few seconds went by before Blake spoke up again. "Something tells me we shall meet again, Miss Roca." he said, huffing a bit. More running and the sound of him falling echoed through the radio. "Ouch! Oh, stupid twigs!" he shouted to himself, the walkie away from his voice. "Relámpago, over and out." he said into the walkie. 

The cops came back down a few minutes later with four pictures. The top photo of Miranda and the hybrid talking, the next one showed Miranda opening the box, the third one showed the hybrid taking the two pills and the fourth one showed Miranda with fire around her hands, she and the hybrid looking at something. A small spec of yellow at the corner of the photo. 

Everyone was now staring at Miranda who still kept her composure. The first cop glaring at her. A disgusted look on his face. "Take her away." 

The camera cop placed the handcuffs on Miranda, who was still stoic as ever. She went back to holding her arm again and gave a nod to the first cop. 

"And take them to the station." he ordered the searcher cop.

Parents were now coming in and talking to officers and taking their kids home. A few of the parents managed to get a good look of both Nila and Miranda in cuffs. 

Blanca moved out of the way as the searcher cop opened the backdoor. He motioned for Blanca to go to the passenger's side. She complied and the searcher cop grabbed Nila by the arm, gently and set her down in the car. Everything started to wind down as handfuls of people started to get into their vehicles to leave. Everyone's attention seemed to finally be away from Miranda, except for Nila who was looking out the back window of the police car. The camera cop was taking her to the police car behind them. A few steps away from everyone and Miranda's stone faced demeanor seemed to falter a bit. She looked... defeated? Ashamed? Nila sighed, turning back around. She slid over to allow Xanthe to get in the car next, but Xanthe stopped herself before getting in when she heard the cop talking to Seen.

"Miss, are you feeling okay?"

Seren looked a bit nauseated, her gaze downcast as she trudged towards the door behind Xanthe.

"Seren?" said Xanthe.

"Huh?" Seren looked up at Xanthe and the officer, then down at the car to Nila and Blanca.

"Maybe we should grab a bag..?" Nila thought. 

"Oh!" Seren forced a smile. "I'm okay guys, I just..." her stomach grumbled in discomfort. "I, I think I ate way too many cookie cats." She chuckled a bit. Her stomach gurgled again and she held it, lunging forward as everything came back up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty! I FINALLY finished episode one! And yeah, it wasn't within a week like I said >.>
> 
> Anywho, I hope you like the story so far, even just a tad bit :3
> 
>  
> 
> I'm currently writing episode 2:  
> Seren and Xanthe ditch a school play and are stranded downtown. Things go downhill from there.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the bad writing. Hopefully this was an okay read for y'all. Also, sorry for the format. I'm still getting used to how all of this formatting stuff works on here  
> I can't wait to post more! :)


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